Poor Tom
By Tom de Freston and Simon Palfrey (Bodleian Library)
A collaboration published to accompany the Shakespeare’s Dead exhibition at the Bodleian Library. The publication was an expansion of the idea that fed into the triptych of paintings de Freston was commissioned to make for the exhibition. The paintings riff on the Dover Cliff scene in King Lear, where Edgar, in the guise of Poor Tom, takes his suicidal father to the edge of an imaginary cliff, from which the old man jumps. The postcards, through text and image, re-imagine Poor Tom as a personification of Shakespeare’s dark playworld, suffering death upon death, and yet surviving to bear witness.
