untitled (Rest in Peace), Rafael Coronel

Exhibition Label:
“Selecciones: Mexican Art from the Collection,” Nov-2005, Kate Meyer
The Spencer Museum is pleased to present four new gifts from Elizabeth Schultz, all created by Mexican artist Rafael Coronel in the 1960s. Coronel’s paintings and drawings are shown here alongside highlights from the museum’s collection of twentieth-century Mexican works on paper. This display invites the viewer to consider Coronel’s connections to works by other Mexican artists. Can affinities be found between Coronel’s imagery and the iconography employed by his contemporaries and predecessors? Or, does Coronel’s modernism stand out, perhaps suggesting global, rather than national, comparisons?
The phrase “expressive realism,” is often used as to describe Coronel’s work. In the case of this drawing, “expressive realism” might well describe the way that the artist carefully renders the figure’s face and hands, but indicates the rest of the body with only a few quick, gestural lines. These sparse marks, and the absence of a more definitive outline, add a sense of fragility to the image.