Hear No Evil

Peter Dean 

1984
Lithograph
26 x 38  inches
Gift of  Jerome H. Meyer  

A tightly cropped lithograph print of a skeleton behind a nude, light-skinned woman. The skeleton is a dark violet with varying shades defining the skeleton’s facial structure and ribs. The skeleton is shown in three-quarter view on the viewer’s left side of the composition facing to the right. Leaning against the chest of the skeleton is an outline drawing of a light-skinned woman, also in three-quarter view. Her hair is in a bun on top of her head, her eyes gaze upward, her breasts are exposed, and she has a closed-mouth smirk on her face. The woman’s arms, bearing a red tattoo near the armpit, are outstretched with the skeleton’s hands holding both sides of her head.  Red and dark violet splatters explode from the back of the skull and down the left side across a white background. On the right side of the composition, behind the woman’s head, there is a large bright-red rectangle with thin dark-violet horizontal stripes.