Untitled (Mayan artifact)

Rodolfo Abularach

This drawing is signed and annotated "NY 7/60". The sheet is glued to a support sheet that measures 13-1/x x 8-1/8".

In the 1950s Abularach spent several years studying pre-Colombian architecture and artifacts at the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia in Guatemala, culminating in an exhibition of drawings in 1959 at the Pan-American Union's Visual Arts Unit in New York, where he'd moved the year prior to study at the Art Students League. The show highlighted his deftly combined draftsmanship and fine art training to produce tightly cross-hatched, fluid biomorphic shapes that relied solely on shadow and light to take form.

The success of this exhibition brought him a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 1960 he exhibited at the Art Insitute of Chicago. This drawing was likely done in preparation for one such show, while living and studying in New York City.