Antonio Frasconi
American, born Argentina, 1919 - 2013Land Workers, 1952
Not on view
Woodcut on paper
Dimensions14 × 11 1/2 in. (35.6 × 29.2 cm)
Gift of Mr. Jack B. Pierson in memory of Mr. Robert Martin Purcell, 1979.167
This print shows four workers tilling the land with shovels. One worker pauses from his work, raising his hand toward us. Antonio Frasconi does not romanticize this type of back-breaking labor as some artists did in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but rather shows, through the woodcut medium, that this type of work took an enormous toll on the physical body. Using two shades of red to color the background and body of the large figure in the foreground, the artist also suggests the heat of the sun that baked the men and the land they worked.
Born in Argentina to Italian parents, Frasconi then moved to Uruguay with his family. As a teenager, Frasconi drew political cartoons for the weekly publication Marcha. Frasconi came to the United States in 1945 to study at the Art Students League. He brought his mastery of the woodcut to a level of consummate skill and exerted considerable influence on the tradition of printmaking in the United States. Frasconi stated, “There is always something to say about what is real in our lives...I always wanted to communicate in my work what is dearest to me. Not death, but life itself, and the greatness is just being alive.”
