Pella Erskine-Tulloch
Large image:
Caption:
The Dante Binding
oil on canvas
78.7 x 63.5 cm
1981-82
Ruth & Marvin Sackner Archive
Pella Erskine-Tulloch: Polyptych
oil on board in 22 sections
77 x 97.5 overall cm
1981-1982
From The Portrait Works (1989), p. 28-33, 86.
The title of the picture, The Dante Binding, refers to the book on which the sitter rests her arms. It was the last thing in the picture to be painted since it did not exist until the final three or four sittings. During the months this portrait took to paint, Pella Erskine-Tulloch and I were involved in designing the three volume binding for the Talfourd Press edition of Dante's Inferno. This sample blank volume was the final prototype.