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Humberto Calzada
(Ciudad de la Habana, Cuba, 1955 - )

Still Life with Stained Glass

1987
Acrylic on canvas
60 x 80 in. (152.4 x 203.2 cm)
Century: 20th Century
Credit Line: Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Ricardo Pau-Llosa, MM.89.04
Accession Number: MM.89.04

More Information

Visual Description

This is a large, brightly colored still life, around 5-feet tall and 6.5-feet wide. The acrylic paint used by the artist emphasizes the crisp lines and vivid color of the scene. A white cloth covers an off-center table set with two broken columns, a capital, and a stained-glass window. The columns—one white and fluted and the other tan and square—stand upright on the left edge of the table, next to an ornate Corinthian-style capital decorated with leaves and scrolls, and contrast with the dim gray and brown background wall. The stained glass sits to the right and is made with saturated red, orange, and green glass, all set in a teal frame.
Making up over half of the upper background behind the table is a canvas, also off center to the right edge of the painting like the table. The canvas depicts a crisp, white, unroofed structure in front of a clear aqua blue background, split by a dark teal horizon line. The building includes multiple doorways and four small sets of stairs leading to various levels through the structure. On the façade of the structure drops a shadow mimicking the stained-glass piece set on the table. The repetition of the stained glass within the painting and the unusual structure with repeating stairways creates an almost dreamlike, or surreal, scene.

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03/26/2024

Bookmark: https://meadowsmuseumdallas.org/collections/pages/objects-1/info/595