1955.4 José Luis Cuevas, Inmate from an Insane Asylum, Mexico City, 1954

A proud member of the Generación de la Ruptura—a group of Mexican artists who sought to rupture, or break away from, the then wildly popular muralism movement—José Luis Cuevas remains staunchly opposed to the expression of political or social themes in art. Heavily influenced by both Pablo Picasso and Francisco de Goya, Cuevas’ subjects are often those living on the fringes of society—madmen, prostitutes, criminals, the impoverished. Here he drew a ward of a Mexico City sanatorium. The figure’s hands peek out from his cloak and gesture nervously in his lap. His mouth opens as if to scream, his eyes cast with a blank stare. Less concerned with recording the unlivable environments endured by patients and inmates, Cuevas worked to convey the miserable psychological and physical state of those within these fringe spaces.

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

Cuevas_José Luis: ULAN: 500021586

Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560

Mexico City (Mexico): TGN: 7007227

ink: AAT: 300015012

ink washes: AAT: 300266217

paper (fiber product): AAT: 300014109

drawing (visual works): AAT: 300033973

works on paper: AAT: 300189621

Mexican Muralist (movement): AAT: 300107850

figures (representations): AAT: 300189808

human figures: AAT: 300404114

sitting (seated): AAT: 300263970

artists (visual artists): AAT: 300025103

political art: AAT: 300256621

politics: AAT: 300055537

Picasso_Pablo: ULAN: 500009666

Goya_Francisco de: ULAN: 500118936

prostitutes: AAT: 300189023

crime: AAT: 300055289

hospital wards (health facility spaces): AAT: 300004543

asylums (welfare buildings): AAT: 300006752

psychiatric hospitals (mental health facilities): AAT: 300006733

sanatoriums (extended care facilities / health facilities): AAT: 300006720

hands (animal or human components): AAT: 300310193

cloaks (outerwear): AAT: 300046142

gesture: AAT: 300056179

mouths (animal or human components): DMA

eyes (animal or human components): AAT: 300400484

patients (people): AAT: 300189316

inmates (people): AAT: 300190096

psychology: AAT: 300054446

urban fringes (urban areas): AAT: 300154319

From 1955: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Art Association Purchase [1], [2], [3], [4]

[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 José Gómez-Sicre, Visual Arts Section of Pan American Union, Washington, D.C., to Jerry Bywaters, Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (dated March 29, 1955, 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 José Gómez-Sicre, Visual Arts Section of Pan American Union, Washington, D.C. (dated April 20, 1955, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records Object File, Confidential). Exceptions and other supporting documents are noted.

[4] 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.