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David Alfaro Siqueiros Cosmos and Disaster 1936
David Alfaro Siqueiros
Cosmos and Disaster 1936
© DACS 2006
Nitrocellulose Paint, sand, wood, nails and copper mesh on a plywood panel
608 mm x 761 mm
Cosmos and Disaster 1936
© DACS 2006
Nitrocellulose Paint, sand, wood, nails and copper mesh on a plywood panel
608 mm x 761 mm
Read transcriptRevolutionary artist and activist, David Alfaro Siqueiros is one of the major Mexican painters of the first half of the twentieth century. In response to the political crises in the 1930s Siqueiros made paintings that were both historically specific and world-wide in their concerns. While briefly in New York in 1936, he founded the so-called Experimental Workshop that became a gathering place for young artists. Cosmos and Disaster was probably made there in the second half of the year. It shows some of the new techniques developed in the Workshop.
Patricia Smithen is Conservator of Modern and Contemporary Paintings at Tate. She has just completed a study of the paintings by Salvador Dali in the Tate Collection and is contributing to a research project on Tate's Surrealist paintings. She is a member of the Modern Paints Research Project carrying out research and treatments on the surface cleaning of acrylic paintings
Detail one:
Another close look at the painting shows a detail where a section of crossed wire was applied and removed to create an impression in an already variable surface.
Detail two:
A close look at the surface in a slightly raking light which highlights all of the different textures achieved by manipulating the paint and by adding other materials.
Detail three: Panel Reverse
Siqueiros worked on this plywood panel that was probably recycled from other uses in the workshop. There are cut lines, splashes and abrasions indicating a working life before its current position of supporting an artwork.
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