Tragedia

Mauricio Lasansky

This work is rare. Thein/Lasansky listed this work as a lithograph and had no impression to illustrate. However, Lasansky pulled some later proofs, this is probably one of those impressions. This plate was done in Argentina before the Lasansky family left for the U.S. in 1943 wishing to escape the tyranny of Peron. This image would have been dangerous for Lasansky to edition and sell.

"Tragedia" is as powerful today as it was in 1935 when it was fist done. A mother and three children gaze in shocked dibelief as their husband and father is led away by the military, his hands tied behind his back. His future is uncertain, as is theirs.

The decade of the 30s in Argentina was called the 'Década Infame' for its military coups, corruption, persecutions and the collapse of the economy into a full Depression, like in North America and Europe. This decade included three presidents and gave rise to an exodus from the farms to the cities and, in 1943, to Juan Peron.