(#99) DOUBLE SUICIDE:

Edition of 2680 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300, 26 copies are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, one is signed as a dedicaton copy, and 5 sets are signed as progressives.

August 3, 1982 14 colors 17-5/8" x 24"

Models: Edie Sei Ichioka & David Lance Goines

Client: The Pacific Film Archive (Tom Schmidt), University of California Art Museum, 2625 Durant Avenue, Berkeley CA 94720. Telephone (510) 642-1413 A-Z: artist's own use. Dedicaton copy: Christian Thompson, Ron Lee Progressives: 1 set to PFA

Influence: Eisen Keisai

Paolo and Francesca, Romeo and Juliet, Jihei and Koharu. No culture has a patent on star-crossed lovers. Those who die together for love are united in death. Their insubstantial shades occupy the second circle of the inferno, where they are forever blown about by stormy winds, as they were by their passions in life. In death, however, they remain forever infatuated, forever young, forever faithful.

Each sunless day, each starless moonless night eases their hearts with the mindless eternal joy of a love that has no beginning, no middle and no end. This is not torture, to reside forever suspended in a crystal unchanging moment of purest joy. This is not punishment for misdirected longing. Forever in love and happy in each other's arms, forever a self-contained universe of all we ever wanted out of life while we lived. Who would not leap hand-in-hand into the icy waters of death; who would not stain the white snow with crimson blood to reap an eternity in the Lover's Quarter of Hell?