Gouache and dye on thin wove India paper, circa 1945. 710x475 mm; 28x18 3/4 inches. Signed in gouache, lower margin. Ex-collection the artist and Associated American Artists, New York. Scattered edge tears and creases throughout the thin sheet edges.
According to the Grove Dictionary of Art, this influential Mexican painter, sculptor and collector, who lived in Guadalajara and later in Mexico City, produced these "smeared papers": sheets of India paper painted with washes of brilliantly coloured aniline dyes that he prepared himself, with the occasional addition of silver or gilt. His painting, inspired by popular and colonial art, has a distinct aesthetic appeal of which he was instrumental in promoting. Though influenced by Georges Rouault and by Marc Chagall (whom he met in Mexico in 1942), he was one of the most original figures in 20th-century Mexican art.
