The Scarlet Letter—The Prison Door (after Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Tim Rollins

Kids of Survival (K.O.S.)

1992–93

In 1981 Tim Rollins developed curriculum for Intermediate School 52 in the South Bronx that incorporated art-making with reading and writing for students classified as academically and emotionally at risk. Rollins and his group of young artists known as K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) followed a collaborative process of “educating by art making.” Rather than reading books as received knowledge, Rollins and K.O.S. painted directly on texts, creating works that actualized their learning experience. In this case they first distilled a symbol—a red letter “A”—from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter. Next, each student developed his own version of this symbol. Finally, these were worked into a collective statement. Hawthorne’s novel traces the struggles of Hester Prynne, a woman convicted of adultery in seventeenth-century Puritan Boston. As punishment for her crime, Hester was forced to wear a red “A” on her chest. Despite her critics’ intentions, Hester wears the letter with pride, turning a symbol of derision into one of empowerment. Rollins and K.O.S.’s large, mutated “A”s painted atop a grid of book pages also make reference to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the prevention of which was often met with puritanical attitudes. [Permanent collection label, 2016]

Artist Tim Rollins (American, 1955–2017)
Kids of Survival (K.O.S.) (American artists’ collective, formed 1982)
Title The Scarlet Letter—The Prison Door (after Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Date 1992–93
Medium Acrylic and book pages on linen
Dimensions unframed | 54 1/8 x 77 3/16 x 1 3/4 in.
Credit line University purchase, Bixby Fund, 1993
Object number WU 1993.25

Technique acrylic painting
collage
Work type painting
Theme Poetry and Writing
Activism and Protest

Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 09/10/2009 - 12/13/2009
Frye Art Museum (Seattle, Washington), 01/22/2010 - 05/31/2010
Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, New York), 02/28/2009 - 08/30/2009

Contemporary Art—Selections from the Washington University Collection
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/19/2001 - 03/18/2001

The Art of the '80s: Modern to Postmodern
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/23/1998 - 04/05/1998

The Dual Muse: The Writer as Artist; the Artist as Writer
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 11/07/1997 - 12/21/1997

Counter Perception: The Shaping of Our Culture
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/09/1997 - 05/16/1997

10/22/1993
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

Inscription Verso, upper left, in red paint: The Scarlet Letter - / The Prison Door / TR and K.O.S. / Smith Bronze 1992-3

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