Es peor sobrevivir
Date: 1958
Medium: Color woodcut
Dimensions (cm.): 30.5 x 41.6
State impressions
Some proofs printed with multiple strikes from plate
Alternate titles: Unknown
Published edition: Unknown
Contemporary publication: Unknown
References: Information to be added
Commentary: In the late 1950s, in addition to their promotion of the generalized idea of world peace, Méndez and the members of the TGP began to focus on the threat of nuclear war, as the Cold War increasingly propelled the Unites States and the Soviet Union into the nuclear arms race. A 1958 print by Mariana Yampolsky, La Guerra Nuclear Transformaría al Mundo en un Campo Desolado (Nuclear War Would Transform the World Into a Desolate Landscape) portrays the force of a nuclear blast in an abstract composition unusual for the members of the Taller. Méndez’s color woodcut, Es Peor Sobrevivir (It Is Worse To Survive), also from 1958, portrays the aftermath of nuclear war.
Reminiscent of Goya’s Disasters of War, a solitary figure, cut off above the elbows, stands on a field of dead bodies. In one version, the ground the background is a deep red, with billowing clouds and waves of heat that surround the living human being. This print is a departure for Méndez. As Yampolsky did in her anti-war image, Méndez employed a greater degree of abstraction than usual to portray this difficult subject. Es Peor Sobrevivir expresses the extreme pessimism and terror generated by the possibility, and even imminence, of nuclear holocaust. The print compares to his anti-Nazi prints in its intense depiction of suffering. (Deborah Caplow)
Catalogue record number: 54