The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Vertically oriented print with a rope down the center on which two disembodied heads with reddish-brown skin tones hang. The rope passes through the back of the head and the mouth of the two heads, hanging horizontally on the rope. The heads face each other, lips meeting with the rope visible in the gap between them. The background is filled with pale brown suggestions of wood grain with roughly oval streaks outlined in black ink.

Kiss on a Rope

2001

Alison Saar

(American, b. 1956)
published by

Blumenfeld Fine Art

America
color woodcut
Sheet: 130.6 x 59.8 cm (51 7/16 x 23 9/16 in.); Image: 130.6 x 59.8 cm (51 7/16 x 23 9/16 in.)
Dr. Gerard and Phyllis Seltzer Fund 2006.69
Location: Not on view

Description

Saar, a sculptor who carves wood, also chisels flat boards to make prints. Like her three-dimensional works, Kiss on a Rope has a handmade look-an expressive roughness. The image could describe an affectionate moment between two individuals, but the disembodied heads also recall the history of violence against African Americans, in particular lynchings. The child of a racially mixed couple, the artist interpreted the two heads as representing a psychological severing from the body, much like the isolation felt by a couple during a passionate kiss.
  • The Cleveland Museum of Art (1/26/2014 - 5/18/2014); "Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings"
  • {{cite web|title=Kiss on a Rope|url=false|author=Alison Saar, Blumenfeld Fine Art|year=2001|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2006.69