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Student Union Collection |
Ida
Applebroog
American, born 1929 Promise
I Won’t Die?, 1987
lithograph, linocut, and watercolor washes
36” x 47 ¾”
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Ida Applebroog calls herself
a generic artist --- not a painter, not an illustrator, and not
a sculptor. Borrowing images from magazines, film, TV, and commercials,
she recycles everyday events. By pulling these images apart and
reconstructing them, she creates dramas in which nothing is quite
what it seems. Political art of the highest order, her work addresses
loneliness, helplessness, sexuality, and the vulnerability of
children. She invites the viewer to create a narrative by employing
freeze frames and repeating images with cartoonish featureless
faces. In Promise I won't Die, Applebroog contrasts a drooping
fruit-laden tree and repeated images of well cared for children
(symbols of abundance) with images of a child abused by an adult
behind the façade of their home, a symbol of love and security.
The repetition of the images shows the everyday nature of these
events. This print was recently exhibited at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
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