Indiana University Indiana University IU

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

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About this Work

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.


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.

Printer Lisa Mackie
Publisher Film Forum

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"Persephone | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2024. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=2019.19