illness – Little Bristling Soul

raveneuse:

Hannah Wilke, Intra-Venus, (1992-1993).

Hannah Wilke died in 1993 from lymphoma. Her last work, Intra-Venus, is a posthumously published photographic record of her physical transformation and deterioration resulting from chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant. The photographs, which were taken by her husband Donald Goddard whom she had lived with since 1982 and married in 1992 shortly before her death, confront the viewer with personal images of Wilke progressing from midlife happiness to bald, damaged, and resigned. The Intra Venus works also include watercolor Face and Hand drawings, Brushstrokes, a series of drawings made from her own hair and the Intra Venus Tapes, a 16-channel videotape installation.

Jo Spence, The Final Project

Jo SPENCE, 1934 – 1992, The Final Project [Specimen Jars], 1991 – 1992, Collaboration with Terry Dennett, Positive digital print from 35mm colour negative59 x 89 cm, Edition of 2 plus 1 Estate Copy

Jo Spence and Terry Dennett, The Picture of Health?, 1982-86

Self-Portrait with Dr. Arrieta, 1820

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Oil on canvas

As court painter to both Charles III and Charles IV of Spain, Goya achieved considerable fame as a portraitist. Self-Portrait with Dr. Arrieta, the last of his many self-portraits, was executed late in his life. In 1819, Goya had fallen seriously ill and his doctor, Eugenio Garc’a Arrieta, nursed him back to health. On recovering, he presented Arrieta with this painting which shows the physician ministering to his patient. The words at the bottom read in translation, Goya gives thanks to his friend Arrieta for the expert care with which he saved his life from an acute and dangerous illness which he suffered at the close of the year 1819 when he was seventy-three years old. He painted it in 1820. This inscription gives the canvas the look of an ex-voto, a type of religious painting still popular in Spain, which expresses gratitude for deliverance from a calamity.

Source: collections.artsmia.org