Skip to main content

Man, Spirit, and Mask

Artist/Maker (American, b. 1955)
Date1999
MediumEtching, woodcut, embossing, and hand-coloring
DimensionsImage (each): 38 1/8 × 25 9/16 in. (96.8 × 64.9 cm)
Sheet (each): 39 3/16 × 26 9/16 in. (99.5 × 67.5 cm)
Frame (each): 48 1/8 × 33 × 1 1/2 in. (122.2 × 83.8 × 3.8 cm)
Credit LineRuth C. Roush Contemporary Art Fund
Edition5/40
Object number2000.5A-C
Status
Not on view
Copyright© Willie ColeMore Information
An extraordinarily inventive artist, Cole transforms discarded household objects into symbols of power, evoking memory, the past and their relevance to the present. The photo-etching on the left presents a self-portrait with the holes of a steam iron drawn on the face, alluding to scarification or branding. The central image shows the scorched impression of an iron burned into a white sheet while the right panel depicts a color woodblock print of a steam iron shown from above and superimposed over the same self-portrait that appears in the first print of this triptych.
Exhibition History
Acquisitions in Contemporary Art
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 25, 2001 - January 13, 2002 )
From Africa to America
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 24, 2007 - July 29, 2008 )
From Then to Now: Masterworks of Contemporary African-American Art
  • Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (January 29, 2010 - May 9, 2010 )
Religion, Ritual, and Performance in Modern and Contemporary Art
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 28, 2012 - May 26, 2013 )
Collections
  • Modern & Contemporary