Nabokov, (Mr. Peanut Drawings), 2013

Vincent Trasov

Nabokov, 2013 (Mr. Peanut Drawings)

Ink and wash on paper; paper: 29.7 × 21 cm, image: 15 × 10.2 cm. 

The ink and wash drawing depicts Mr. Peanut as novelist and poet Vladimir Nabokov, holding a net as he walks through a thick woodland. Nabakov is known for having been an avid enthusiast, collector and illustrator of butterflies throughout his life.

The ever-expanding body of work that is Vincent Trasov’s Mr. Peanut drawings began as a palm-sized flip book, which evolved into a 16 mm film of the Planters Peanuts corporation’s brand icon tap-dancing. The drawings, produced over the past twenty years, depict Mr. Peanut infiltrating scenes of historical, geographical and artistic contexts, as a symbol which has lost its original meaning and which since has taken on a myriad of new associations.