A Dance of Death

Variant Dates: 1987-92, 1992.Medium: Linocut with letterpress.Print Image Size: 17 1/2 x 14 1/4 inches.Print Edition: 50 (with 21 artist's proofs).Alternate Medium: Linocut with color letterpress.Ink(s): black (linocut); green, blue, black (letterpress).Support: handmade paper (by John Risseeuw).Contemporary Adam and Eve figures, similar to those in Adam and Eve Celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial [CMA 2001.034.219], stand next to a tube television and an American flag. A lion lies with a lamb at their feet, while a human-faced snake coils in an apple tree above their heads. A minstrel boy stands at the lower right, who is being stepped on by a skeleton embracing the largest figure, a TV Evangelist. Dollar bills cascade from the sky into a pile on the floor, below a giant hand emitting rays of light. The text "Hey, You Down Dere!" appears in a cloud. Letterpress text at the top reads "The Death of a TV Evangelist or, the Barble as Writ in Ummerikan." Letterpress text on the television screen displays "Gawd loves ya! Send bucks $$" in light blue ink.Lower letterpress text in green ink reads "You down dere! The Garden of Eden - the lamb shall lie down wit da lion, Gawd loves ya! Send bucks $$." A first-state proof without letterpress exists and twenty second-state proofs are numbered in roman numerals. The linocut, often confused for a woodcut, was printed on handmade paper by John Risseeuw. The print was created for A Dance of Death, a collaborative portfolio in printmaking and papermaking published by Cabbagehead Press at Arizona State University, Tempe. The collection contains twenty broadsides covering selected visions in word and image about the dance of death