Carol Summers

Casa Marquez (40/100), 1989
Woodcut in colors on Japanese paper
15.75 x 19.75 in
SKU: 8821g
$2,800
PurchaseMake an OfferInquire
"Casa Marquez" is an excellent example of the printmaking of Carol Summers. In the image, Summers has featured a Spanish Renaissance building, replete with classical architecture - ionic pilasters and roman arches over glazed windows that reflect the landscape like a pair of eyes. In the far distance is a red sunset over the Mediterranean sea. This interest in classical subject matter is common of modern artists: both Picasso and Giorgio de Chirico looked to classical themes throughout their careers, abstracting Greek and Roman architecture and narratives to characterize the instability of modernity. Summers certainly does the same here by warping and tilting what should be a stable stone structure. The drama of Summer's representation of the villa is enhanced by his signature printmaking technique, which allows the ink from the woodblock to seep through the paper, blurring the edges of each form.

The title of the print refers to the author Gabriel García Márquez, known for such novels as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). The casa here might refer to the home of his grandmother, Doña Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes. She played an influential role in his upbringing. He was inspired by the way she "treated the extraordinary as something perfectly natural." The house was filled with stories of ghosts and premonitions, omens and portents, all of which were studiously ignored by her husband. According to García Márquez she was "the source of the magical, superstitious and supernatural view of reality". He enjoyed his grandmother's unique way of telling stories. No matter how fantastic or improbable her statements, she always delivered them as if they were the irrefutable truth. It was a deadpan style that, some thirty years later, heavily influenced One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Art: 15.75 x 19.75 in
Frame: 25.88 x 29.75 in
signed and marked with edition (40/100) lower right
Loading...