Juan Soriano (B. 1920)

oil on canvas

Galería de Antonio Souza, Mexico
Private Collection, Mexico

Within his long and pioneering career, Mexican artist Juan Soriano has stated that one of the periods that gave him the most pleasure was his brief experimentation in abstraction.  El Pez, dated 1958-1960 hails from that period and plays a critical role in the artist’s career as well as in the history of Mexican art.  The year 1958 marked the passing of the titan of Mexican Modernism, Diego Rivera, and heralded the era of La Ruptura (The Rupture), the birth of Mexican contemporary art.  Soriano’s El Pez was thus born in an atmosphere of change, signaling both a personal and universal search for a new art movement.