About the Exhibit
By the year 1500, a new genre of visual and literary culture was thriving in Europe: the dance of death or danse macabre. Dancing with Death will feature works on paper spanning from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries that highlight this visual tradition of bringing death to life. By animating death and transforming a state of being into a character, Europeans both poked fun of and meditated on mortality. This exhibition highlights both sides of the macabre coin: fear of death and fun in life.
Organized by Elizabeth Welch, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in Prints, Drawings, and European Paintings, Blanton Museum of Art
The Test of Faith by the Devil from The Art of Dying, circa 1470
Woodcut
The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002.260
Image of Death from The Nuremberg Chronicle,1493
Woodcut with watercolor
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2003.12
Florence, Italy, 1610-1664
Death Carrying off a Child, from The Five Deaths, circa 1648
Etching with burin, second state of three
The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002.1371
Nuremberg, Germany, 1500 - Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1550
Death and Three Nude Women, circa 1546-50
Engraving, second state of three
Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1981.43
Death with a Crossbow or Death Stays on Target circa 1635
Engraving
The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002.2589
Edinburg, Scotland, 1763 - Rome, Italy, 1820
Reclining Male Cadaver, from Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints, by John Bell, 1794
Engraving and etching
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2000.4
Aachen, Germany, 1816 - Düsseldorf , Germany, 1859
Death as an Enemy, 1851
Wood engraving (by Gustav Richard Steinbrecher)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Isidore Simkowitz in memory of
Amy Cecelia Simkowitz-Rogers, 1995.177
El Paso, Texas, 1940 - Hondo, New Mexico, 2006
Dance with the Skeleton, 1984
Lithograph
Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1985.79
Installation Photography
Image Credits
Michael Wolgemut, Image of Death (detail), from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493
Woodcut with watercolor (hand coloring)
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2003
