Sin título [Untitled]

Artist Zilia Sánchez (Cuban, 1926 - 2024)

Date1962/1971/1990

Dimensions15 × 25 × 8 in. (38.1 × 63.5 × 20.3 cm)

Mediumacrylic on stretched canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

2022.10

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 07

DescriptionStretched canvas painted with black, beige, and white. Intimately scaled rectangular canvas with a rounded protrusion toward the base of the work. Because Sánchez often alludes to the corporeal, the way she renders this work evokes a protruding belly or stomach; the roundness provides a softness and sensuousness.

Label TextIn the 1960s, Zilia Sánchez began painting onto stretched and shaped canvases with protruding elements that she constructed herself, adding dimension to her abstract and curvilinear compositions. The projections create evocative peaks and valleys, recalling the sensual contours of the body—the female body in particular. After Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, Sánchez moved to New York, where she lived between 1964 and 1972, during a period of robust artistic experimentation. It was the height of hard-edge abstraction (characterized by areas of color with distinct edges) and minimalism (often composed of single or repeated geometric forms). She was in dialogue with artists such as Sol LeWitt and sculptors like Louise Nevelson (see works by both artists in this gallery). In this intimately scaled rectangular canvas with its muted tones of beige, black, and white, she includes a rounded protrusion toward the work’s base, blurring the distinction between painting and sculpture. Because Sánchez often alludes to the body, Sin título evokes a protruding stomach, the rounded form giving the work a softness and sensuousness. The corporeal, even erotic, undertones and dimensionality of her works express her dedication to experimentation, which has continued throughout her career.Published ReferencesSmall, Irene V. and Marimar Benítez, Zilia Sánchez: Heróicas Eróticas en Nuevo York, Barcelona Actar Publishers and Galerie Lelong, 2014, repr., p. 43.

Sretenović, Vesela, Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla, The Phillips Collection and Yale University Press, 2019, repr. p. 80-81, 101.

Exhibition HistoryNew York, Galerie Lelong, Zilia Sánchez: Heróicas Eróticas en Nuevo York, May 3-June 21, 2014.

Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection; Ponce, Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla , February 16-October 21, 2019.