I don't know how this slipped by me, but now it's going up for sale tomorrow at Christie's: a very early Jim Shaw pencil & airbrush drawing from 1981 with the obvious-now-that-you-mention-it title, Mormon Missionary and Prostitute Making Each Other Feel Guilty.
In 1981, Shaw wasn't even really showing his art yet--the earliest group show in his current, abridged bio wasn't until 1986. And he was years away from the unveiling of O-ism, his homebrewed, Life of Brian-style, parallel universe version of Mormonism, which he showed at the Swiss Institute and Metro Pictures in 2002. [O, and there was The Donner Party his awesome O-ist reimagining of Judy Chicago's feminist masterpiece, The Dinner Party, which was at PS1 in 2007.]
Anyway, Shaw was still busy in 1981; Ed Ruscha helped him publish Life And Death, an artist book compilation of airbrush drawings that do look a bit like this Mormon Missionary here. Perhaps they are related.
Lot 30: Jim Shaw, Mormon Missionary and Prostitute Making Each Other Feel Guilty, est. $3000-5000 [christies.com]
