Troncos de Amate

Carl Lewis Pappe

Something as simple as a barren tree is a work of sculptural beauty through the eyes of Carl Lewis Pappe, whose life carried him from Hungary to Taxco, Mexico, where he found his creative calling. This appears to be a pine tree, life now spent, its remaining trunk and branches still bending and twisting in a kind of paused dance.

Pappe’s work ranged from the representational to the non-objective, but at no point did he seem to adhere to one style or another. Having started his career as the country dove into the Great Depression, he grabbed at any opportunity to learn something new and to use what skills he had in order to continue with his creative processes. It was in Mexico, where he landed in 1934 in what he thought would be a temporary excursion, that he hit his stride.

This was likely done from a study on one of his many trips throughout the southwestern Mexico countryside.