Caballos en Celo (Fighting Horses)

Mauricio Lasansky

A powerful, eerie Surrealist work from the beginning of Mauricio Lasansky's time in the United States. Living in New York for just under a year by the time he created "Caballos en Celo", Lasansky was studying at Atelier 17 in Manhattan, where it had been relocated from Paris by Stanley William Hayter with the onset of World War II. The hallmarks of the workshop's influence can be identified in the sinuous and nearly automatic-line style of the animal's body.

While in Argentina the young artist was influenced by Picasso and the surrealists, as evidenced in this powerful image that pays homage to Picasso's "Guernica". “Caballos en Celo”, which roughly means "Rival Horses" is also known as "Fighting Horses". This was the artist's third print done at the Atelier, the first a surreal horse, twisted in anger or agony. The second was the iconic "Doma", a Surreal struggle between a horse and a human. This image is struggle between two Surreal horses. Though the imagery has been interpreted to be an homage to Picasso, Lasansky noted that the burin line was distinctly his own. His personal style, which borrowed from his roots in the folklore of Argentina and the classical style of banknote engraving - his father's occupation - shows through in the strange mythos of the narrative. While the title suggests two horses battling one another, it is in face a single body with two heads, and the suggestion of a third emerging in the flank on the right. The Lasansky catalog raisonne notes a single edition of 50 (like this), but the earlier catalog by the Philadelphia Museum (#58 as "Fighting Horses") notes an edition of 25, like the two previous works, "Horse" and "Doma". Lasansky printed a second edition of 50 of "Doma" in 1974 and it is possible he did it also with this plate.