William Kentridge
South African 1955-
Universal Archive (Six Birds)
2012
signed and numbered 6/30 in pencil and embossed with the David Krut Workshop chopmark in the margin
linocut printed on non-archival pages from Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
image size: 57 by 63,5cm; 81 by 87 by 4,5cm including frame

David Krut Workshop, Johannesburg.

Private Collection.

Lillian Tone (ed) (2013), William Kentridge Fortuna, London: Thames and Hudson, a similar example illustrated on page 38 to 39.

"The periodic table of the linocuts was an exercise in contradiction. The contradiction between the softness of a Chinese calligraphic brush and the mark of Indian ink on paper, as opposed to the hard sharpness of a blade cutting either a block of wood, or a piece of lino. Here, the task was to see how accurately one could follow the Indian ink on the block of lino in other words, trying to make an inkwash drawing through the impossibly hard-edged medium of a lino block. I started some of the cuttings myself, but was then thrown off the job by the members of my studio who cut the blocks so much better, with so much more care and finesse.' - William Kentridge, 20121

1. Lillian Tone (ed) (2013), William Kentridge Fortuna, London: Thames and Hudson, page 38.