Soledad Acostada (Solitude, Lying Down) from: The Mexican Masters Suite

Francisco Zuniga

This image is one of Zuniga's first color lithographs, produced at Editions Press in San Francisco while working with Master Printer Ernesto Desoto in 1973. This image was included in 'The Mexican Masters Suite' with 2 prints each by Zuniga, Tamayo, Siqueiros and Cuevas.

Zuniga captures an intimate scene of a woman lying on the ground with her back to a sunlit wall, head resting on her arm, dreaming. He provides no clues to his subject’s life path, asking the viewer to abandon any narrative they begin to construct; the image then is simply a gentle, dignified moment of repose.

In 1972, Zuñiga created his first lithograph. As a complement to his emotionally powerful sculpture, his prints articulate the sensitivity and sensuality of the human figure, particularly the strong and powerful matriarchs of his cultural heritage.

A master of portraying the human figure, Costa Rican/Mexican artist Zuniga often chose poses and forms that directly rejected Eurocentric ideals, opting to use the knowledge gathered in his study of European artists and techniques to redirect the focus onto the world that he most closely related to, that of the daily lives of everyday Indigenous Mexican peoples. Once of a source of scorn from institutions bent on upholding traditional Western art values, Zuniga’s work came to be recognized as revolutionary and masterful.