Nottobe

The subjects of these pictures all committed suicide. I haven’t intended the depictions to be lurid or depressing. I haven’t portrayed the act itself, nor the aftermath but, rather, have tried to imagine the moment just before the act when there is still a choice and life hangs in the balance. Someof the subjects are the sort of people of whom it is often said that they had everything to live for. Painter Jules Pascin, for example; the toast of Montmartre who, at the height of his career and on the eve of his biggest exhibition, cut his wrists and scrawled a note in blood on a closet door, then finalized the act by hanging himself from a doorknob in the “Portuguese method.” And George Sanders (insouciant actor of the 40s & 50s, remembered for his roles in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Moon and Sixpence,” Oscar winner as Addison DeWitt in “All About Eve”) who conducted a press conference at a Barcelona airport, checked into a hotel room, wrote a famous note which said “I am committing suicide because I am bored,” and consumed five bottles of pills.