Ellas

The boy wonder of postwar Mexican art, Cuevas challenged the long dominance—and dogma—of the Mural movement in the 1960s. Spurning social realism and its national ideology, he embraced the down-and-out world of eccentrics, prostitutes, and beggars, sketching their lives with graphic sharpness and poignancy. A masterful draughtsman, Cuevas showed an early proclivity for the print medium and its strong linear quality, seen in his prolific work in multiples and in illustration. Color played a supporting role, evidenced in the tonal, sea-green and yellow-beige pigments that wash across the two figures portrayed in "Ellas". Their features are drawn with dexterous economy, the line delicate in its suggestion of deformity and distortion. Cuevas wrangled cynically with the human condition, here evoking the depths of loneliness and alienated despair.

This text was created in collaboration with the University of Maryland Department of Art History & Archaeology and written by Abigail McEwen.