David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974)
Lot 15 PROPERTY OF THE ESTATE OF RUTH BEGUN (1912-2014)

David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974)

Landscape

Closed26 May 2016

Price Realised

USD 87,500

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David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974)
Landscape
signed and dated 'Siqueiros, 12-54' (lower right)
pyroxylin on masonite
30 x 23 5/8 in. (76.2 x 60 cm.)
Painted in 1954.

Acquired directly from the artist (mid-1950s).

Specialist note

We are grateful to Prof. Irene Herner for her assistance cataloguing this work.


A trailblazing figure, Ruth Begun’s many accomplishments included being the first woman to earn a master’s degree in physics at the University of Berlin in 1936 and shortly thereafter inventing the viscometer—an innovative device used in printing. She later worked for NASA and Ford Motor Company. Begun acquired the present work directly from Siqueiros, whom she met in Mexico City through her sister-in-law, Dr. Henrietta Begun who was the artist’s physician.


“For a long time I have come to the conclusion that for me a landscape, better yet, the depth of a landscape, is not structured pictorially by means of a succession of increasingly distant theater curtains, but rather as a scale module with the volume of all the elements of geographical shapes and dimensions that exist within a particular geographical area.”
--David Alfaro Siqueiros