My Mother’s Last Hand 
from Untitled (Watercolour Notebook)
1980–1985
notebook with 13 watercolours
Audio description of the work

This  is a description of a watercolour painting in a notebook which is slightly larger than letter paper size.  The notebook is displayed under a plexiglass case at standing height eye level and is open to this watercolour of the palm of a left hand, made as a part of a daily practice of drawing.

Taking up a full page of the right side of the notebook, this line drawing is of a left hand, palm up angling from the bottom left to the top right of the page. The thumb is parallel to the other fingers and is held in a resting position between the pointer and middle fingers.  It is in profile and has a short nail quite close to it’s knuckle. The hand, drawn in black ink, has cross hatched shading on the right side of the fingers and on it’s heel and springlike coils of hair along its thick wrist. It is shaded in with a watery magenta. The space on the page above it, on the left, is purple and below it, is yellow. Written diagonally along its upper flank are the words -Quote “My mother’s last hand” end quote.

Looming large beside the work on the right is a giant reproduction of a watercolour painting of a woman reclining, A work Cohen created after the style of a painting featuring what he would have called an Odalisque, an eroticized artistic genre in which a concubine is represented mostly or completely nude in a reclining position.

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

This watercolour notebook contains 13 drawings made by Cohen over several years and executed in a consistent style. The full selection can be seen on the monitor to the left. Many are annotated with a single line or couplet that responds to the content and mood suggested by the drawing. The notebook is open at the page that shows the hand of his mother, Masha, who died in 1978. He later explained: quote  “Drawn in the last few months of her life, it is her hand and my hand drawn as one.” end quote

End of Exhibition label text.

5 My Mothers Last Hand

The Great White Way 
1988 
acrylic on canvas
The Keith Haring Foundation 
All images © Keith Haring Foundation

Stretched in the shape of a penis, this massive painting is a critical visualization of what author bell hooks described as “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” The pink phallus is decorated with black lines that make up an intricate scene of weapons, violence, torture, and other abuses of power—a visual representation of the problems of Euro-American society. Haring’s title implies the white supremacist ideology underpinning these activities. The painting shows a phallocentric world in which profit and power in the name of “good” and God are used as tools of oppression. The Great White Way is a prime example of what is perhaps Haring’s greatest skill: the ability to make something look like shallow fun—in this case, a massive, cartoonish, pink, candy-striped penis—while simultaneously speaking truth to some of society’s foremost tyrannies.

The Great White Way

Untitled
1988
acrylic on canvas
Private collection
All images © Keith Haring Foundation

This untitled work shows a human figure struggling to walk up a staircase while carrying a massive egg tied to its back. The egg is cracked and a sperm with devil horns bursts from its shell. The painting speaks profoundly to the AIDS epidemic that took the lives of so many within Haring’s community, including his own. Using monumental scale, a palette drained of colour, and graphic imagery, Haring represented the impossible weight of the AIDS crisis.

Untitled

Rowing

Rosalba Carriera

Maria Clara Eimmart

Susanna Perwich

Luisa Roldan

The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto is one of North America's leading art collections. Come visit and experience more than 4,000 artworks across 110 galleries. Visit https://ago.ca

5 My Mothers Last Hand

Art Gallery of Ontario

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