- Title
- The Fanatic (El fanático)
- Date Made
- circa 1935
- Medium
- Oil on laminated paperboard
- Dimensions
- Frame: 46 1/2 × 38 3/4 × 1 3/4 in. (118.11 × 98.43 × 4.45 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2002.192
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
The Fanatic (El fanático) shows a bound figure compressed in an architectural space–an allusion to the physical and psychological entrapment of workers. Closely associated with David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974), Luis Arenal Bastar was a political activist who collaborated with Siqueiros on several mural projects in the United States and Mexico, and also experimented with new techniques. In 1937, Arenal was a founding member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP), a collective center for the creation of sociopolitical art. Ilona Katzew, 2008
- Selected Bibliography
- Haskell, Barbara, ed. Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945. New York: Whitney Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020.
