Bon Chance en Fer (Good Luck in Iron)

Melvin Edwards (American, born in 1937)
With: Pat Almonrode (American, 20th century)
Made at: Dieu Donné Papermill, New York

2000

Medium/Technique Stenciled cotton rag pulp on linen fiber paper, and pigment

Dimensions Sheet: 43 x 56 cm (16 15/16 x 22 1/16 in.)

Credit Line Lee M. Friedman Fund

Accession Number2004.459

NOT ON VIEW

CollectionsContemporary Art, Americas, Prints and Drawings

ClassificationsPrints

During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Edwards began an ongoing series of sculptures called Lynch Fragments comprised of chains, locks, railroad ties and other materials evoking the African-American experience of injustice. Each welded assemblage is about the size of a human head and intended to be wall-mounted at eye level. The ironically titled Good Luck in Iron is analogous to these sculptures in its depiction of the hardware of subjugation, and its suggestion of a pair of faces. More a sculpture than a print in the conventional sense, it was made of dyed paper pulp with coiled chains used as stencils.

Provenance2004, sold by Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 23, 2004)