Mezcala Stone Figure

Frances Pratt, Teochita, New York (inv. no. Teo 412)

Alan E. and Marianne Schwartz, Michigan, acquired from the above on November 1, 1964

Thence by descent to the present owner

Finch College Museum of Art, New York, Guerrero: Stone Sculpture from the State of Guerrero, Mexico, May 18 - October 3, 1965

Meadow Brook Art Gallery, Oakland University, Rochester, New York, Art of Pre-Columbian America, February 15 - March 26, 1976

Carlo T. E. Gay, Guerrero: Stone Sculpture from the State of Guerrero, New York, 1965, cat. no. 48

Cecilia F. Klein, Art of Pre-Columbian America, Rochester, New York, 1976, p. 20, cat. no. 23

The figure's rounded torso, well-defined neck, and sloping legs are carved from densely speckled and polished hard diorite. With the distinctive ‘cheek flaps’ beneath the pronounced, raised brows, the figure aptly reflects how Carlo Gay characterized the Mezcala style as being “abstract in concept and geometric in construction. Whereas abstraction is at times carried to an extreme, the relationship of cuts and plans is so finely balanced that the resulting forms have great strength and dignity” (Guerrero: Stone Sculpture from the State of Guerrero, New York, 1965, np.).

While little was scientifically known of the stone sculptures from the Guerrero region, the figures were highly regarded for their diverse, evocative and minimalist forms that appealed to the modernists of the 20th century. The Mezcala was studied extensively by Carlo Gay, proposing how the shift of the utilitarian stone axe was elevated to figural and architectural forms by the skill and artistry of the ancient lapidary artists. Gay produced one of the early exhibitions and catalogues on the genre at the Finch College of Art in 1965, which this figure was shown in.