The Well

Francisco Benjamin Lopez Toledo

Francisco Toledo created a number of prints in 1970 featuring images of Mexican vaqueros, or cowboys. As well, he retained his exploration of the fantastical, creating images that read like tales open to interpretation by the viewer. In "The Well" a vaquero and his steed jump into a well, as a prairie dog makes its way toward the same destination.

Like his mentor before him, Mexican Master, Rufino Tamayo, he had come from the small Zapotec villages of the Oaxacan region, drawn to the works of artists such as Tamayo, Lam, and Matta who diverged from the political work of the famed Mexican muralists. As with many non-political Latin American artists, his reception in North American art scenes was slow to take, despite his early talent.

By the age of 17 he was a student at the Taller Libre de Grabado; by age 20, he had left for Paris to further his studies at Atelier 17 with Stanley William Hayter. By the time he returned to Mexico, he was lauded by Parisian writer and Surrealist Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues for his "development of the mythic" and "sacred sense of life."

The practice of herding cattle on horseback was brought to Mexico by the Spanish in the 16th and 17th centuries and spread from Mexico to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. The almost mystical connection between cowboys and their horses appealed to Toledo’s interest in hybrid creatures and connections between the natural and supernatural worlds.