O.T.I.S.: Photo Essay: Paintings of Jack Kevorkian
April 24, 2010 — Since HBO is premiering their Jack Kevorkian movie tonight (You Don’t Know Jack: The Life and Deaths of Jack Kevorkian), I figured I’d either take a stab at relevancy or just play remora, depending on how you look at it. Besides being an assisted suicide proponent, the man known to most of us as Dr. Death has also been known to try his hand at art, often of the macabre variety. A couple of months ago, as research for my upcoming book (announcement soon), I was granted private access to his collection of original paintings that are kept in the vaults of the Armenian Library and Museum of America (ALMA) in Watertown, MA (Kevorkian’s parents were Armenian refugees). Since I spend a chapter in the book on this oddity and don’t want to have to sue myself for copyright infringement later, I’ll skip the commentary and just let his works scream for themselves.
I’ll need to do a whole article on ALMA itself at some point.
A Very Still Life
Nearer My God to Thee
For He Is Raised and Fa La La La La - La La - La La
Brotherhood
The Gourmet (On War)
The mixed media piece 1915 Genocide 1945 incorporates actual blood in the paint. Often reported as Kevorkian’s own blood, I was told that it was just anonymous blood he was able to procure using his connections as a doctor.
This is what you look like when you have a Fever
Paralysis
Much thanks to the curator at ALMA, Gary Lind-Sinanian, who went through the trouble of pulling these out of storage for me to gawk at with my hand on my chin.
