De schoone slaapster 1929

Fré Cohen made this woodcut print, called 'The Sleeping Beauty', in black ink on paper. Look at the high contrast between the light paper and the dark ink. There is a real drama and tension created by the way Cohen cut and carved away at the woodblock. It's so graphic, isn’t it? Like a very dark shadow puppet show. I can imagine Cohen working away at the block, thinking about the story, the characters, and the space. She’s really got this idea of the fairy tale. The drama. I feel the looming presence of the sleeping curse about to happen. What does it mean, in this dark space, to prick your finger and fall asleep for 100 years? Cohen seems to be asking us to consider the stories we tell and the meanings we give them. How fairy tales evolve, and what they mean to different people at different times. It is a beautiful, thoughtful act of image making.