The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 25, 2024
Strike on the Pier
1954
(Mexican, 1896–1974)
Unframed: 55.9 x 70.5 cm (22 x 27 3/4 in.)
Gift of Semi J. and Ruth W. Begun 1995.175
© Artists Rights Society, (ARS), New York
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
Siqueiros utilizes nature to convey mood with the aggressive waves and darkened shadows of clouds on the water creating a feeling of tension reflective of the strike.Description
Early in his career, Siqueiros condemned easel painting as bourgeois and anti-revolutionary. Small-scale paintings, he believed, did not benefit of the public in the way that large-scale murals did. Still, smaller works are an important part of Siqueiros' prolific artistic career. During the mid-1940s and early 1950s he used the small format to expand his thematic interests to landscape, still-life, portraiture, and abstraction. Aware that such imagery conflicted with his more revolutionary paintings, he acknowledged their significance as independent works of art and as studies for murals. While Strike on the Pier is not a study for a particular mural, it is true to the spirit of the socialist themes Siqueiros explored throughout his career. A confrontation between two masses of people, a common motif in the artist's work, is heightened by agitated water lapping at a narrow pier. Seen from high above, the tiny figures are stylized and non-specific. A sense of broad movement is conveyed by the forward thrust of the group on the right, about to attack the mob on the left with bayonets. The composition is further energized by the bright colors, painted over an ominous gray background tone, and the use of rapidly executed brushstrokes.- Object in Focus: David Alfaro Siqueiros, Strike on the Pier. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 9-July 26, 1998).Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; June 9 - July 26, 1998. "Object in Focus: David Alfaro Siqueiros, Strike on the Pier."
- {{cite web|title=Strike on the Pier|url=false|author=David Alfaro Siqueiros|year=1954|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1995.175