Castronautes

1965

Castronautes, 1965. Roberto Matta (Chilean, 1911–2002). Color etching and aquatint; sheet: 65.6 x 49.5 cm (25 13/16 x 19 1/2 in.); platemark: 31 x 23.6 cm (12 3/16 x 9 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Harold T. Clark Educational Extension Fund 1967.68 © Artists Right Society (ARS), New York This print represents one of Roberto Matta’s preferred subjects in printmaking: politics. Matta traveled to Europe and worked with Surrealist artists, who favored the type of evocative but abstract forms seen here. The artist uses roughly drawn lines to suggest the dynamism that he felt characterized astronauts and Cuba’s move toward communism under leader Fidel Castro (1926–2016), merging the two in the print’s title. Around the time this print was made, Roberto Matta also expressed his political views in a series of paintings opposing the Vietnam War.