Cadaver ("Punta Seca")

Mauricio Lasansky

This work is extremely rare. The Thein/Lasansky raisonné incorrectly lists this work as a lithograph and had no impression to illustrate at the time of publication. This plate was done nearly a decade before the Lasansky family left for the U.S. in 1943, while Argentina was embroiled in the "Decada Infame" in which political upheaval exascerbated economic depression and social unrest. At the time of its creation, this image would have been dangerous for Lasansky to edition and sell, as the imagery suggests sympathy toward working class struggles during a time when dictatorship was on the horizon.

In place of a title, in the lower left margin Lasansky has annotated "Punta Seca," which translates in English to "Dry Point." Is this a reference to the media it is done in, or is it a veiled political reference? Then, as today, artists rarely noted the media at all, let alone in place of the title. Since this was printed in Argentina during such intense sociopolitical times, it would have been in his interest to mask the startling title.

The image itself is as powerful today as it was in 1935. A mourning woman stands before a row of bodies, searching for a loved one among the four adults and one child. Behind her a man is bent in grief, holding a hammer in his left hand as a representation of the working class. Beyond the open drapery in the background, three figures seated on a bench await their turn to search.

The 'Década Infame' would lead to Juan Peron's troubled rise to power in 1946. Lasansky, who left for New York on a Guggenheim Fellowship earlier that year, sent for his family to remove them from the continued danger that threatened the daily lives of Argentina's working class.