Man Spirit Mask

Artist: Willie Cole, American, born 1955
Printer: Randy Hemminghaus, Canadian (active United States), born 1957
Printer: Gail Deery, American, born 1957
Publisher: Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Papermaking, New Brunswick, New Jersey, founded 1986
Publisher: Alexander and Bonin, New York, New York, founded 1995
Date: 1999
Material: Photo etching, screenprint, and woodcut, with embossing, scorching, and hand-coloring with lemon juice
made in: United States, North and Central America
Classification: Prints
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image (a): 38 1/4 x 25 5/8 in. (97.2 x 65.1 cm)
sheet (a): 38 1/4 x 26 5/8 in. (97.2 x 67.6 cm)
image (b): 31 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. (80 x 54.6 cm)
sheet (b): 39 3/8 x 26 7/8 in. (100 x 68.3 cm)
image (c): 38 1/4 x 26 5/8 in. (97.2 x 67.6 cm)
sheet (c): 39 5/16 x 26 5/8 in. (99.9 x 67.6 cm)
Credit Line: Funds given by Marcia Jeanne Hart in honor of Beth Adams Louis
Rights: © Willie Cole
Object Number: 46:2001a-c

NOTES

This triptych presents two images of the artist's face, personalizing the transformation of man to mask. Willie Cole uses steam irons as symbols of African-American domestic workers like his grandmother who ironed in people's homes for low wages. The iron's scorch marks can also be read as ritual scarification. Cole notes that "the iron is like a branding iron, and its symbol, or its brand, is like a tribal mark on the person or object that's branded by it."

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