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Richard Tuttle (1941- ), AmericanLETTER AND ENVELOPE FROM A COLLECTION OF LETTERS SENT TO A FRIEND; Three page pen and ink upper and lower case calligraphic hand printed letter, dated "April 6" including a reference to the death of Martin Luther King Jr., with a hand-made gold paper envelope with masking tape, postmarked "April 1968" (smudged) with ten one cent US stamps depicting Andrew Jackson, the envelope, addressed to "Mrs. Betty Bishop" at "43 Thorncliffe Pk Drive, Toronto", signed "Tuttle" with his return address: "734 11th Ave./NYC, USA, 1009" on the verso (*please see website to view full letter)Letter 12.5" x 8.25" - 31.8 x 21 cm.; 4.5" x 9.5" - 11.4 x 24.1 cm.Provenance: Sent to Mrs. Betty Bishop, residing at 43 Thorncliffe Pk. Dr., Apt. 1017, Toronto in April, 1968 from the artist, New YorkNote: The artist and Betty Bishop corresponded with each other for 20 years beginning in the 1960's. This and the following lots, lot 12, lot 13 and lot 14 are the embellished handmade envelopes, or in some cases, the embellished commercial envelopes, he sent to his friend, Betty Bishop, in Toronto, in the late 1960's and 1970's. It is interesting to note, Betty Bishop's address changed frequently but Tuttle's remained primarily the same at 734 11th Avenue, New York. Calligraphy, poetry, language, books and printed matter were primary influences and subjects of Tuttle's work since the beginning of his career in the 1960's. He calls his three- dimensional works "drawings" rather than sculpture and emphasized the small scale rather than the conventional large scale of Modern sculptural practice. Instead of steel, marble and bronze, Tuttle created small playful objects in materials such as paper, rope, string, cloth, wire, cardboard, nails and styrofoam. A similar work by Tuttle, utilizing letters of the alphabet, is the subject of "Letters (The Twenty-Six Series)", currently held in the collection of MOMA (273.2002.a-z). This small galvanized sculpture was executed in 26 parts, each part a letter of the alphabet, measuring 6" x 9" x 5/8", dates from the same early period, 1966, as this lot. In another example, Tuttle drew his name "Richard Tuttle" in pen and ink and with hand lettering printed:"Not having an idea for a drawing, I made a drawing of my name".