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Electric guitar (Pro II U series Urchin Deluxe model)
Arai Company (Aria trademark) (Japanese)
1984
Object Place: Nagoya, Japan
Medium/Technique
Ash, maple, rosewood, plastic, steel, brass, nickel silver
Dimensions
Overall: 103.5 x 38.1 x 4.5cm (40 3/4 x 15 x 1 3/4in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds donated by Carol T. and Robert P. Henderson
Accession Number2009.2417
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAsia, Contemporary Art, Musical Instruments
ClassificationsMusical instruments – Chordophones
The dramatic curves of the Urchin guitar might have been inspired by the spiny points of the instrument's sea-dwelling namesake, or they might suggest the sinister fins of a shark. Regardless, the reference to ocean life is evident, with the deeply shaded blue-black varnish over a striped maple veneer that suggests ripples in a sandy beach as the ocean breaks over it. Various other guitar models from the 1980s experimented with abstract, pointed designs, as heavy-metal bands sometimes used their instrument's weapon-like appearance as a visual complement to the loud, thrashing music that was their trademark. Probably inspired by the work of B.C. Rich, a California guitar maker who started building guitars with similarly spiky outlines a decade earlier, the Urchin never sold as well as the company's more traditionally shaped models of classic American guitars.
ProvenanceBy 1993, Daddy's Junky Music, Salem, New Hampshire; November 19, 1993, sold by Daddy's Junky Music to Michael Wright, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 2009, sold by Wright to the MFA. (Accession Date: May 27, 2009)