Lot 12 : JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCÍA (1874-1949)
Auction Location: United States of America - 2003
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Artist or Maker:
Uruguayan
Title:
TRADICIÓN DEL HOMBRE ABSTRACTO
Description:
SIGNED AND DATED (MAKER'S MARKS)
signed, titled and dated 1941 lower right
ink and graphite on panel mounted on panel
Dimensions:
24 by 20 1/8 in.
(61 by 51cm)
Provenance:
Estate of the artist (Family archive no. 787)
Horacio Torres
Cecilia de Torres, New York
Alejandra, Aurelio and Claudio Torres
Galerie Jan Krugier, Ditesheim & Cie, Geneva
Exhibited:
Montevideo, Museo de Arte Precolombino, Homenaje Joaquín Torres-García, July 28, 1974, no. 62, illustrated
Düsseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle, Bilder Sind Nicht Verboten, August 28-October 24, 1982, n.n.
London, Hayward Gallery; Fundación Joan Miro, Barcelona; Städtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf; The American Federation of Arts, New York; Miami, Miami Center for the Arts; Houston, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Torres-García Grid-Pattern-Sign Paris-Montevideo 1922-1944, November 14, 1985-April 1987, no. 116, p. 96, illustrated in color
Buenos Aires, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Séis Maestros de la Pintura Uruguaya, September 15-October 15, 1987, p. 85, illustrated
Stuttgart, Staatgalerie, Magie de Zahl in der Kunst des 20 Jahrunderts, February 1-May 19, 1997, no. 2.65, p. 255, illustrated in color, p. 64
Strasbourg, Musée D'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Joaquín Torres-García: Un Monde Construit, May 24-September 8, 2002, p. 216, illustrated in color, p. 249
Notes:
The tradition of civilization is the tradition of ABSTRACT MAN. This concept of structure has existed since prehistoric times and through the ages. Beginning with the primitives, continued by the Incas, Aztecs, Egyptians, Greeks, and during the Middle Ages.
It was fundamental in the civilizations of all ages, as men evolved from caves to Architecture, from superstition to Philosophy, from force to Justice. It is a Tradition of knowledge engraved in stone, intrinsic to a symbol, as true yesterday as tomorrow, as everlasting as the Sun.
Joaquín Torres-García, Tradición del Hombre Abstracto, 1938 (translated by Cecilia Buzio de Torres)
When Torres-García wrote The Tradition of Abstract Man in 1938, he had just returned to his native Uruguay after forty-three years of living abroad. In Montevideo, he soon realized that young artists were eager to learn about the latest art developments in Paris. He formed the AAC (Association of Constructivist Art) in 1935 and later, in 1944, the Taller Torres-Garcia (Torres Garcia Workshop) where he taught constructivist art as well as traditional methods of drawing and painting. The Tradition of Abstract Man is a condensed account of his essential ideas.
As a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona, he searched for a way out of the stifling academic and decorative styles. His discovery of the work of Puvis de Chavannes together with studies of Greek philosophy and literature led him to define the basic ideas that would guide him throughout his life. The concept of Abstract Man, or spiritual man, is derived from Hellenism, which for Torres-García embodied the highest human ideals in all the arts as well as in philosophy. Particularly important for him was the Protagorian concept that 'Man is the measure of all things.'
In his work as well as in his writings Torres-García was always searching for a perspective that would be classic and timeless. The meaning that he attached to the word constructivist is quite different from Russian or other constructivist work. For Torres-García cave paintings could be considered constructivist, when for the first time men represented the world around them in an orderly way. He regarded all great art from that time on as constructivist because of its underlying structure.
Cecilia Buzio de Torres, published in: Grid-Pattern-Sign: Paris-Montevideo 1924-1944. Arts Council of Great Britain. 1985.
