John with Art, by Robert Arneson, was made in 1964. It’s a colorful glazed stoneware sculpture of a toilet. The toilet sculpture itself measures just under 3 feet high to the top of the tank, by a foot and a half wide by just over 2 feet deep. The toilet stands on a rectangular base made of the same colorful glazed stoneware; the base stands an inch and a half high and measures about 3 feet wide by 4 feet deep.

The sculpted toilet has been decorated all over, using flowing daubs and patches of bright colors. Viewed from the front, on the vertical white surface of the tank, there’s the rough shape of a heart in gray-blue, outlined in pink. To the left, as you face it, the lever-style toilet handle projects from the tank; it’s a shiny silver color, resembling metal. The lid of the tank is yellow. The toilet seat is white, with grayish streaks; there’s no lid, so the white interior of the toilet bowl is exposed to the viewer. And in the middle of the bowl is a small lump of clay resembling feces. The pedestal of the toilet is covered with rough areas of bright orange, red, blue and white. The base of the pedestal is gray-blue.

The toilet stands on a rectangular base resembling a bathroom mat, decorated with a checkered pattern of multi-colored squares.