- Artist/Maker:
- Hannah Wilke
- Bio:
- American, 1940-1993
- Title:
- B.C. Series, September 18, 1990
- Date:
- 1990
- Medium:
- Watercolor on paper
- Dimensions:
- 41 1/2 × 29 1/2 in. (105.4 × 74.9 cm)
- Credit Line:
- Gift of Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon, and Andrew Scharlatt, Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles, in memory of Selma and Emanuel Butter, parents of Hannah Wilke and Marsie Scharlatt, grandparents of Emanuelle, Damon, and Andrew Scharlatt
- Accession Number:
- 2010-39
- Copyright:
- © Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon and Andrew Scharlatt/Licensed by _VAGA_, New York, NY
Not On View
Following her diagnosis of lymphoma in 1987, Hannah Wilke began a series of striking self-portraits in watercolor called BC (Before Cancer). The lush brushstrokes belie a portrait of a woman facing death. She had already watched her mother die from breast cancer in the 1980s-baldness and emaciation resulting from chemotherapy became her mother's Auschwitz, the artist said. Wilke's image of a woman stripped bare functions as both feminist critique and Jewish lament.
Information may change as a result of ongoing research.