Big Brother is Watching You

 

Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero

  1927 - 2020 (biography)

1975  

mixed technique color intaglio from shaped plates 

23 1/4 x 19 3/4" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

11 of 150  

pencil titled, dated, and editioned 

 

ivory Arches wove 

published 

artist 

23478 

SOLD

The abstract bust of a hatted man is depicted with various, unidentified gadgets protruding from his head, neck, and shoulder in Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero’s “Big Brother is Watching You.” Perhaps the gadgets are listening devices; or perhaps they are just shapes the artist was drawn to. Indeed, the composition could be construed as a fantastical, humorous interpretation of government overreach, or now internet search engines, an idea that is bolstered by the work’s hint at the sinister in the hollow eyes and half-shadowed visage of the subject; or it could simply be a wild portrait whose title came after the fact. Either way, the deeply impressed and shaped platemarks, the saturated colors, and strange embossed silhouette come together to form an exemplary work of fine art printmaking by an artist known for his vibrant imagination. Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero was born in Santiago, Chile on May 27, 1927. He studied in Chile, Brazil, the United States, the Slade School in London and at Atelier 17 in Paris. Principally a printmaker, Gonzalez-Tornero had more than forty solo exhibitions in Chile, Canada, Europe and the United States. Sergio discussed his printmaking techniques in an essay on page 325 of The Art of the Print by Fritz Eichenberg, ISBN 0-8109-0103-X. Sergio was married to fellow Atelier 17 printmaker Adrienne Cullom.