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Man, Spirit,and Mask (triptych)
Artist: Willie Cole (American, born 1955)
Publisher: The Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper (RCIPP), New Brunswick, New Jersey
Printer: Printed by Galamander Press; master printer Randy Hemminghaus: master papermaker Gail Deery.
Date: 1999
Dimensions:
Overall ((dealer measurement)): 39 3/16 x 26 1/2 in. (996 x 673mm)
Medium: Photo etching, embossing, hand coloring, silkscreen, lemon juice, scorching and woodcut.
Left panel (panel 1)
Photo etching, embossing and hand coloring
Paper: Sommerset Antique White
Plate no. 1 photo etching printed in brown
Plate no. 2 embossing with hand coloring (lemon juice) and scorching
Middle panel (panel 2)
Silkscreen with lemon juice and scorching
Paper: Rutger's HMP 100% cotton
Right panel (panel 3)
Photo etching and woodcut
Paper: Sommerset Antique White
Plate no. 1 photo etching printed in Sepia
Plate no. 2 woodcut printed in white
Plate no. 3 woodcut printed in silver
Plate no. 4 woodcut printed in opaque white
Plate no. 5 woodcut printed in black
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Frederick B. and Kate L. Shoemaker Fund
Object number: 2000.50A-C
Label Text:Willie Cole offers piercing social commentary without sacrificing aesthetic beauty. This triptych includes some of Cole’s signature elements: the self-portrait, the use of scorching, and the symbol of the domestic iron.
The first panel presents Cole’s face, embossed with the outline of an iron. The steam vents, hand-colored with lemon juice, suggest scarification or branding of the face, a practice in many African tribal traditions. In the second panel, the image of the iron has literately been scorched into the paper. Lemon juice is again added, reversing its domestic use as a treatment for scorching when ironing clothes. The third panel flips the artist’s face upside down, overprinted with the iron image and transformed into an African mask. Cole wrote about the iron, “My relationship with it began in 1988 when I spotted one on the street near my Newark studio, all flattened and discarded…. Right away I saw it as an African mask, more specifically a Dan mask. And without a second thought I brought it into my studio, photographed it, and made a list of all the things it suggested to me,” including the slave trade, domestic servitude, and the spirituality of heat/fire/scorching.
The first panel presents Cole’s face, embossed with the outline of an iron. The steam vents, hand-colored with lemon juice, suggest scarification or branding of the face, a practice in many African tribal traditions. In the second panel, the image of the iron has literately been scorched into the paper. Lemon juice is again added, reversing its domestic use as a treatment for scorching when ironing clothes. The third panel flips the artist’s face upside down, overprinted with the iron image and transformed into an African mask. Cole wrote about the iron, “My relationship with it began in 1988 when I spotted one on the street near my Newark studio, all flattened and discarded…. Right away I saw it as an African mask, more specifically a Dan mask. And without a second thought I brought it into my studio, photographed it, and made a list of all the things it suggested to me,” including the slave trade, domestic servitude, and the spirituality of heat/fire/scorching.
Not on view
In Collection(s)