Persephone
| Artist | Mary Frank (American, b. 1933) |
|---|---|
| Title | Persephone |
| Date | 1992 |
| Medium | Color collagraph and stencil on paper |
| Dimensions | Image: 8 1/4 × 8 13/16 in. (21 × 22.4 cm) Sheet: 11 13/16 × 15 7/8 in. (30 × 40.3 cm) |
| Credit Line | Gift of Dr. Jane Fortune, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University |
| Accession Number | 2019.19 |
| This artwork is currently off display. You may be able to see this artwork by filling out an art viewing room request. | |
A nude female figure reclines with her right knee bent and her head back with the top of her head pointing down. She is rendered in gray against a black background. A red flower-like shape overlaps the image on the left side, extending into the margins.
Mary Frank frequently revisits favorite motifs over an extended period of time in different media. In the 1980s, the mythical figure Persephone became part of her visual repertoire. The Greek goddess of harvest and fertility and queen of the underworld, Persephone offered a complex metaphor for death, rebirth, and the cycles of womanhood. Rather than a regal figure, Frank depicts her as a recumbent nude rooted to the earth with her raised knee suggesting childbirth and a mountainscape, as seen in this print. The blood-red, abstract shape superimposed on the figure recalls both botanical and anatomical forms.
| Printer | Lisa Mackie |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Film Forum |
Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.
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Cite this page
"Persephone | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=2019.19