King John, Frog, 2017 - Rose Wylie
about this work
This edition is part of School Prints, a series produced by the Hepworth Wakefield, reviving a groundbreaking scheme set up in the 1940s to supply original, high-quality contemporary art to primary schools.
About this edition, Rose Wylie says: “I like frogs, there don’t seem to be a lot about any more. This image was triggered by a television programme on King John, who was not popularly considered a ‘good’ king at the time. The story has it that some monks decided to get rid of him by extracting poison from a frog, disguising it in wine and offering it to a travel-worn king. So this frog is both historically fixed and an example of a contemporary frog drawing, similar to that shown on the programme to catch and embody the historical fact. A suitable subject for schools... green colour for frogs, lateral politics and endangered species; with an apparently random 'King John' written into the print, but in fact there to establish connection and scholarship, and to encourage discussion.”
