Death is a Small Child c. 1950s

Harold Persico Paris made this print, “Death is a Small Child,” with stark black ink on paper. I imagine Paris carving into the block, wrestling with the material to bring forth these ghostly figures. You can almost feel the weight of the child’s small body, surrounded by grief and despair. The dark lines create a sense of claustrophobia, drawing you into the emotional intensity of the scene. See how the faces are etched with pain, the bodies contorted in anguish? I wonder if Paris felt as though he was bearing witness to a universal tragedy, translating something both personal and archetypal. It reminds me of the German Expressionists like Käthe Kollwitz, who also used printmaking to explore themes of death and suffering. There is an undeniable power in Paris’s work that comes from the raw, unvarnished depiction of human emotion. Artists like Paris and Kollwitz remind us that art can be a vessel for confronting the most difficult aspects of our existence, offering a space for empathy and contemplation.