José Gutiérrez Solana Madrid 1886-1945

Suma Collection
Valero Collection, Madrid
Horacio Castro Escalada Collection
Sale: Sotheby's Madrid, 16 June 1992, lot 33

Venice, XVIII Biennale Internazionales d'Arte, Mostra individuale di José Gutiérrez Solana, 1932, no. 29 (illustrated in the catalogue)
Oslo, Kunstforeningen, José Gutiérrez Solana, 1933, no. 12
Paris, Gazette des Beaux-Arts et Beaux-Arts, J. G. Solana, 1938, no. 5 (illustrated in the catalogue)
Buenos Aires, Galería Velázquez, Exposición Homenaje a Solana, 1950, no. 16 (illustrated in the catalogue)
Santander, Fundación Marcelino Botín, José G. Solana, 1997, p. 52 (illustrated in the catalogue)
Barcelona, La Ciaxa, José G. Solana, 1998, p. 52 (illustrated in the catalogue)

Espasa-Calpe, El Pintor Español José Gutiérrez Solana, Madrid, 1936, pl. XLIII, illustrated
Ramón Gómez de la Serna, José Gutiérrez Solana, Buenos Aires, 1944, no. 106, illustrated
Manuel Sánchez-Camargo, Solana (Biografía), Madrid, 1945, no. 51, illustrated
Emiliano M. Aguilera, José Gutiérrez-Solana: Aspectos de su vida, su obra y su arte, Barcelona, 1947, pl. XXXIX, illustrated
Benito Madariaga, José Gutiérrez Solana, Santander, 1976 (illustrated on the inside cover)
L.A. Fernández, J. Solana, Estudio y Catalogación de su Obra, Madrid, 1985, p. 189, no. P. 44, catalogued and illustrated
Jóse Gutiérrez Solana, Reina Sofía, exh. cat., Madrid, 2004, p. 58, illustrated 

Painted circa 1925, Solana's Un Mascarón is a work of enormous visual power. Wielding a frying pan and holding before her an empty wine sack, the lone masked figure is carnival in her trappings but clearly confrontational in her intent. Out to intimidate, her frying pan is a weapon of destruction, while the sagging wine sack is a symbol of male impotence and emasculation. The sum total is a telling image of horror, fear, and bewilderment. 

Solana, in the tradition of Goya and later James Ensor, exploited masks to transgress the codes of normal practice and escape from social constraints. The sex of the figure is thus indicated only by the hint of a drawstring skirt, subverting the stage tradition of male actors playing females roles. The grotesquely theatrical mask hides the womn's face and any vulnerability that she may feel in her role as dominatrix. 

The macabre undertones of the painting are heightened by the dark palette conventionally favoured by Spanish artists and 'dirty' paint surface intimating moral misgiving and psychological unease. The poet Antonio Machado called Solana a 'necromantic Goya,' who 'paints with insane voluptuousness, treating life as though it were death, death as though it were life' (John F. Moffit, The Arts in Spain, New York, 1999, p. 198).

The composition of the present work was developed into a drypoint by the artist circa 1932-33.