Sandra
- 1959
- Oil on canvas
- 130 x 97 cm
- Cat. P_445
- Acquired in 1990
- Observations: There are other variations of the work by the artist with the same title.
Saura was conscious of the omnipresence of the human figure in Spanish painting and the connotations of the archetypal female image in religious painting and portraiture. Against this backdrop, in the 1950s, he began work on Damas [Ladies]. There has been some debate among historians as to whether or not his full-length female figures, titled with first names (as in the case of Sandra (1959)) should be included in this macro-series. The painter explained his recurrent depiction of the female body in the following terms: 'In order not to descend into absolute chaos, in order not to commit suicide, in order not to lose my footing and not to get too far from a tremendous reality, I have, without realizing, chosen the only structure that could suit me [...]. The female body, which has been present in all my paintings since the end of 1955, reduced to its most elemental presence, almost a grotesque, subjected to all kinds of cosmic and telluric treatments, might seem to be proof of the constant presence of the human being in Spanish art, but it is above all a structural support for action, for protest, that enables me not to lose myself'. Sandra (1959) reflects a decisive shift in Saura's painting towards a gestural art that recognises developments in international abstract art. It owes a clear debt both to the monstrous corporeality of Willem de Kooning's women and to Jackson Pollock's dripping (Saura said he prostrated himself before Pollock's 'ejaculating brush'). For Saura, 'painting is intimately linked to sexuality [...] perhaps more than any other form of expression. If only because it creates something [...]. The painter participates in the vital current of the universe'. In Sandra and other works of the time, as well a devotion to the female body, one can also see a notion of 'fertilisation' or 'fecundation' of the picture through the paint. This masculine principle, which some critics have identified in the work of Pollock and Picasso, reflects the feminine as being the opposite of phallocratic dictatorial orders, such as the governing regime of Spain in the 1950s. These named women ultimately form an archetype of the woman in the collective unconscious, from the exalted Virgin to the mourning widow of the Spanish post-war period, the threat of the erotic and the maternal archetype of the prehistoric Venus.
The work reflects a moment when Saura was trying to retain the figure in a central position on the canvas with a large quantity of white masking. A similar approach to composition can be seen in other works from the period, such as Lola or Dama [Lady] (1956, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid) and María (1956, private collection) and it was to become a claustrophobic space as his career progressed. However, only one work has so far been identified with the same title, Sandra (1956), and the composition in it is different. In a slightly larger canvas (160 x 130 cm), the formless figure of the woman is on the left-hand side, leaving the masking on the right. This first Sandra is undoubtedly connected to the one in the Banco de España collection. In 1994, Gérard de Cortanze documented it in the artist's collection and it is now in a private collection in Madrid.
Other works by Antonio Saura