The Mass of Mankind from 10: Artist as Catalyst

Luis Jimenez

1992

A color screenprint in which Luis Jiménez stages a charged, allegorical tableau—a mounted man rides past a woman picking cotton beneath a banner quoting a rhetorical line—intended to confront and interrogate American histories of power, labor, and myth.

You’re struck by the burnished, cross-hatched surfaces and warm, saturated colors: a sunburst frames a classical, columned building while a muscular rider and a bent figure in a red headscarf form a tense diagonal punctuated by a curling, hand-lettered banner.

Part of Jiménez’s larger practice, this print uses popular imagery and monumental composition to pull contested narratives and overlooked labor into public view, demonstrating how printmaking can operate as a vehicle for social and cultural critique.

Palette

Art Terms

Silkscreen Print Portfolio Figurative Investigating identity Social Realism Popular culture Contemporary art

Exhibitions

Committed to Print

1988

Some American Prints, 1949–50, from the Museum Collection

1951

American Prints of the 20th Century

1954

American Prints, 1960–1985

1987