Dance of Death
ByMare Blocker
Ames Lake: M Kimberly Press, 1991. Edition of 150.

4.75 x 7.5”; 11 unnumbered pages. Linoleum cuts. Text in Times New Roman. Printed on Rives BFK and Folio. Accordion folded pages pasted to one end of paper wrapper. Title letterpress printed on front. Signed and numbered by the artist. Inscribed to Chris Stern on the colophon.

Colophon: "This book, illustrated in the tradition of Hans Holbein the Younger whose woodcuts have been a great source of inspiration, was printed on the occasion of The M Kimberly Press' Seventh Anniversary." The last lino cut image portrays the artist as a medieval scribe.

www.danceofdeath.ingo: “The central message or meaning of the dance of death is that this world is temporary and any worldly riches or power that you may accumulate will all disappear, because death always wins. … The dance of death originated as an actual dance, a form of morality play, that would be staged in medieval villages throughout France and Germany in which persons dressed as the Grim Reaper would dance with people representing various elements of medieval society, such as priests or noblemen, and lead then to their doom. The idea was to show that it did not matter what your station in life was, death was the great leveler.”

Blocker’s lino cuts show Death lurking in the shadows giving voice to the brief introductory story of a poor man who says to Death when he knocks on his door "You do not honor the rich or the poor, the old or the young, the beautiful or ugly. To you all are the same."
$125