"Hiroshima" by William Kent, (Amer., 1919-2012)

Slate Print, 1963, 10" x 12", Ed. of 26 known impressions, signed, titled and dated in white pencil, printed in white ink on black japan paper. "Hiroshima", created in the first year William Kent started making prints from his carved slates, is one of three anti-nuclear prints he created against the indiscriminate devastation wrought by nuclear warfare, and certainly his most eloquent. The monochromatic gray and black, and the evident tactility of the slate matrix from which it was printed, here present a geologic artifact of the post nuclear fossil record. The grasshopper's lifeless, upended husk, enveloped by the ashen gray mist, provides a powerful symbol for the consequence and all inclusive finality of nuclear war.