1959.48 Maria Luisa Pacheco, Stoic Figure, 1959

In Stoic Figure, a woman stands before a massive head, whose definitive forms seem to grow from the landscape. The stern expression and heavy brow add to the stoicism of the stone-like head. An earthy clay palette and subtle tonal shifts create abstract fields of colors, which connect the ancient effigy and its observer.

 

The paintings of Maria Luisa Pacheco evoke the landscape and indigenous culture of her native Bolivia. Her style, however, results from a formative trip to Europe in the early 1950s, followed by a residency in New York, where she lived and worked up until her death. While Pacheco found success in the United States, her influence as a mentor and active painter was much greater in Latin America, where she was a foundational member of el grupo de los Ocho Contemporáneos, or the Group of Eight Contemporaries, which sought to raise the standards of the budding trend toward modernism in Bolivia.

Tower Gallery: Latin American Art, Label text, 2017.

Pacheco_María Luisa: ULAN: 500041552

Bolivia (nation): TGN: 1000046

La Paz (inhabited place / Bolivia): TGN: 7005499

New York (New York/United States): TGN: 7007567

United States (nation): TGN: 7012149

oil paint: AAT: 300015050

canvas: AAT: 300014078

painting (visual works): AAT: 300033618

figures (representations): AAT: 300189808

human figures: AAT: 300404114

female: AAT: 300189557

women (female humans): AAT: 300025943

standing: AAT: 300239500

colossi (large scale sculpture): AAT: 300047453

heads (representations): AAT: 300262520

form (composition concepts): AAT: 300056272

growth: AAT: 300055136

landscapes (environments): AAT: 300008626

landscapes (representations): AAT: 300015636

stoicism (philosophical movements and attitudes): AAT: 300055977

stone: AAT: 300011176

palette (color range): AAT: 300056166

color (perceived attribute): AAT: 300056130

ancient (style and period): AAT: 300106711

effigies (funerary sculpture): AAT: 300047108

population (demographics): AAT: 300055417

human (culture): AAT: 300393250

humans (homo sapiens species): AAT: 300265711

culture: AAT: 300055768

Europe (continent): TGN: 1000003

modernist (European style): AAT: 300021474

influence: AAT: 300055860

painters (artists): AAT: 300025136

Latin America (general region): TGN: 4006155

founders: AAT: 300112017

groups (organizations): AAT: 300386362

abstract: AAT: 300108127

abstraction: AAT: 300056508

geometric motifs: AAT: 300009764

geometric abstraction: AAT: 300056509

geometric shape: AAT: 300263819

circles (plane figures): AAT: 300055627

lines (geometric concept): AAT: 300056279

spheres (geometric figures): AAT: 300055639

squares (geometric figures): AAT: 300055637

rectangles (parallelograms): AAT: 300055636

From 1959: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Art Association Purchase, purchased from the artist [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]

[1] The main source for this provenance was existing information in TMS (in Dallas Museum of Art Digital Collections Records Object Files). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.  

[2] The main source for this provenance is letter from Maria Luisa Pacheco to Jerry Bywaters, Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (dated December 06, 1959, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[3] The main source for this provenance is letter from Jerry Bywaters, Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, to Maria Luisa Pacheco (dated December 11, 1959, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[4] The main source for this provenance is letter from Jerry Bywaters, Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, to Maria Luisa Pacheco (dated December 19, 1959, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[5] The main source for this provenance is letter (inventory list) (n.d., copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[6] The Dallas Art Association is the predecessor to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name was abandoned in 1970. Works from this collection were transferred to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.