Ana Mendieta

Galerie Lelong, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in July 1995

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art;  Washington D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Des Moines Art Center; Miami Art Museum, Ana Mendieta: Earth Body Sculpture and Performance 1972 - 1985, July 2004 - January 2006, no. 16, p. 115, illustrated in color

This work appears in very good condition. All inconsistencies to the surface appear inherent to the media. Framed under Plexiglas.
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In 1982, Ana Mendieta began to render drawings on found balsam apple leaves, known as copey leaves in the Caribbean. Once used for their durability as playing cards by the Spaniards in the colonial era, the thick affliction of the leaf support responded well to the artist's manipulation with ink, pencil, a stylus, even nails and needles. The drawings and impressionss realized on the leaf surface poignantly recall the artist's earth works and renowned Silueta's. Over time, the leaves have dried, creating a beautifully fossilized realization of the fleeting ephemera of time and the fragility of life which is at the crux of the artist's body of work.