This painting depicts an incident involving "Beat" writer William S. Burroughs and his common-law wife Joan Vollmer. While they were drunk at a party in Mexico City on September 7, 1951 he told Joan, "It's time for our William Tell act." Joan placed a glass of water on her head. Bill took out his gun, took aim, and missing the glass, shot Joan in the head. An hour later she was dead.
Mr. Burroughs wrote Naked Lunch, Junkie,The Soft Machine, and many other books not for the faint of heart.
From - Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks, by Michael Frank and Louise Reilly Sacco, Ten Speed Press
