Mask

As a child growing up in Sofia, Bulgaria, Gorgi Dukov was taught the craft of papier-mâché and decoupage by his father. He went on to study structural design before emigrating to New York City at age 49. Unable to find professional employment, he turned to creating art and selling it on the street as a source of income. Decoupage masks became his signature creative product, with printed images appropriated from Broadway playbills and depictions of celebrities like Elvis Presley and famous landmarks such as the Empire State Building. The iconography on the masks reflects his admiration of American icons and interest in national politics and cultural phenomena. To increase the number of masks he could produce, Dukov created all the masks to resemble the familiar head of the Statue of Liberty. For Dukov, Lady Liberty serves as the most recognizable emblem of American self-identity.

In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Dukov felt his masks might provide some degree of solace and pride for those living in, or visiting his adopted city. Accordingly, he created a new line of masks that incorporated images of uniformed responders, the Twin Towers, Lady Liberty wearing a firefighter’s hat, and the New York City subway map. He then displayed his collection of masks, which he marketed as a “Salute to America,” along the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue.

The mask in the Museum’s collection is decoupaged with portraits of some of the 343 firefighters killed on 9/11, excerpted from the New York Times series “Portraits of Grief.” Devoted to personalizing each victim, this series provided a short biographical vignette accompanied by an individual picture, if available. Rescue personnel who died that day were also commemorated in group portrait galleries. Months after the attacks, the wife and daughter of FDNY victim Dennis Cross, chief of Battalion 57, were walking through Central Park when they spotted Cross’s portrait from the “Portraits of Grief” series on one of Dukov’s masks. They were visiting Manhattan before daughter Laura’s upcoming wedding, and she was emotional about the prospect of walking down the aisle without her father to escort her. The serendipity of seeing his face combined with the Statue of Liberty’s iconography persuaded them to purchase the mask from Dukov.