Mortal
"Mortal" by Kiki Smith is a portfolio work that reflects the artist's ongoing exploration of the human body and its vulnerabilities, created through a collaborative printmaking process with the publisher Thirteen Moons in New York. The piece is part of a limited edition of thirteen impressions, each individually signed, dated, and numbered by the artist in pencil, emphasizing the handmade and personal nature of the work. Smith's practice frequently engages with themes of mortality, embodiment, and the physical condition of human existence, translating these conceptual concerns into richly textured visual forms.
- Medium
- All signed, dated and numbered 7/13 in pencil, published by Thirteen Moons, New York, all framed.
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Evening & Day Editions
January 23, 2025
Lot 39
Collectors with works by Kiki Smith
Artists in conversation
Louise Bourgeois
French-American · b. 1911
Bourgeois similarly explored the fragility and vulnerability of the human body through figurative work and printmaking, engaging deeply with themes of mortality, femininity, and psychological embodiment in ways that closely parallel Smith's practice in Mortal.
Ana Mendieta
Cuban-American · b. 1948
Mendieta's work shares the same preoccupation with bodily vulnerability, mortality, and the allegorical power of the human form, using a gothic and ritualistic sensibility to examine fragile existence that resonates strongly with the themes in Mortal.
Käthe Kollwitz
German · b. 1867
Kollwitz was a master printmaker whose figurative works centered on human suffering, mortality, and bodily fragility with a deeply personal and allegorical approach, making her a clear visual and thematic predecessor to the qualities seen in Smith's Mortal portfolio.
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