Untitled - Death (from the portfolio "Santa Claus - A Morality", nine etchings to accompany e.e. cummings' play)

 

Alexander Calder

  1898 - 1976 (biography)

1974  

etching 

18 3/4 x 13 3/4" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

147 of 175  

pencil editioned, lower left 

Hogblen and Watson 154; V & A 154 

heavy cream Arches wove 

published 

Editions de l'Herne, Paris 

JPR109a 

$1,250.00 

The first plate from the suite of etchings created to accompany the text, in both English and French, from e.e. cummings' most successful one-act play, "Santa Claus" (1946). “The play is an allegory in which Death and Santa Claus exchange masks, but a child sees through the masks to the true identity of each. Death is equated with Science, which ‘can sell people anything -- except understanding.’ In the end, Santa Claus, who is a young man beneath his mask, reveals himself to the child and her mother” (from: Spring, A Journal of the e.e. cummings Society).