Three Giants

Artist Russell Ferguson (American, born 1955)

Printer The Lawrence Lithography Workshop (American, founded 1979)

Publisher Tim S. Brown, d.b.a. Telephonebooth Gallery (born 1964)

Date2015

Medium2 color lithograph on Rives BFK white paper

DimensionsImage: 21 1/2 × 22 inches (54.61 × 55.88 cm)
Sheet: 22 1/4 × 24 1/4 inches (56.52 × 61.6 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund and the Andrew Atterbury and Gwen Prentice Fund

Object number2024.9.30

Edition/State/ProofLLW Imp

On View

Not on view

Collections

Contemporary Art

Terms

DescriptionIn the upper left corner of the print, the three giants of the title, wearing hairy bodysuits and walking on stilts. The first one walks to the left with his face in three-quarter view. He wears a headdress and hold a hoop-shaped horn in his proper right hand while he blows into an umbrella-like mouthpiece. His left arm hangs at his side. A second giant follows behind him (to the viewer’s right). His proper right arm is folded across his chest and his proper left arm holds something aloft that fans out to the right and dangles like a snake down the line of his back. The third giant turns away from them to the viewer’s right so that we see only his back and headdress. He holds a long crutch in his proper right hand. He faces a rope cage structure topped by a sort of upside-down cauldron. There is an unidentifiable something seated or placed on a square box in the center of the cage. A twisting rope extends out to the right. A woman in a black romper stands on it, facing to the left, her head thrown back as she pokes a bent rod into one of the holes in the cauldron with both hands. In the half of the image , a figure resembling Mark Twain seated in the lower left corner, a little girl in his lap, both facing left, and a squatting child above him, facing right. Two other children in the middle, seated and facing left. Various shapes scattered across the floor. Two long forked poles go from lower left to upper right supporting an arched pole. Squat stacked pyramids in the middle ground.Provenance

Provenance

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.