Mujer con abanico was created during a transitional period in Joaquín Torres-García’s artistic career. In 1922, after having lived in Barcelona, Italy, and France, he moved his family to New York, where he sought to be challenged by new artistic and professional opportunities. These included an idea to manufacture an ongoing series of wooden toys and three-dimensional figures, which he simply termed objects plastiques or maderas.
His commercial venture in New York was brief and disappointing. Yet the vibrant city life he experienced and observed populated works from this period, including this painting of an urban café scene. At the same time, the Cubist-inspired features in the faces of Mujer con abanico, particularly that of the male figure, hint at the geometric forms of his maderas and foreshadow the structural elements that would dominate the visual language of his Constructivist legacy. The painting in the background behind the male figure, rendered in a Post-Impressionist mode, may be a nod to the French artist Paul Cézanne, an inspiration to Torres-García as he turned toward abstraction. This painting fuses a blend of styles, revealing the influence of European and American pictorial sources in his work.
Identification
Title
Mujer con abanico (Woman with Fan)
Production Date
1924
Object Number
2012.108
Credit Line
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift of Jorge M. Pérez
Mujer con abanico by Joaquín Torres García is a painting from 1924. It is made of oil paint on board. It measures sixteen and a quarter of an inch wide by seventeen and seven-eighths of an inch tall and is hung in portrait orientation, meaning its shortest side runs parallel to the ground.
Starting with the two central figures who are sitting side by side, on the left a man and to the viewer’s right, a woman. The man has short brown hair and the details of his face are minimal: black lines that give the general impression of a face. His skin is peach and grey. He wears a white shirt, a red tie, and a brown suit with a grey pocket square. In his hands he holds a newspaper with black letters. The woman to the right wears red hat and red clothes. Her face is also left with few details. Her lips are red and her skin is a vibrant peach color. In her left hand she holds a foldable fan that is orange and brown. In front of her there is a small cup on a dish. Inside of the cup there is a dark liquid that could be tea or coffee.
Behind the figures the wall is painted grey, green, and brown. There is a painting of what appears to be an animal in a landscape behind the man. In the top right corner, the artist’s signature is visible along with the number “1924”.
Joaquín Torres-García
Joaquín Torres-García — b. 1874, Montevideo, Uruguay; d. 1949, Montevideo Artist Page