Toy-like Cubist and early Modern artworks are the focus of an exhibition of painted wood constructions called maderas by Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García. He was an artist and ex-toy maker who made artworks from the sensual, splintered wood salvaged from wooden boxes used to transport whiskey bottles or from old-fashioned fruit and vegetable crates. Abstract shapes, crisp straight lines, and primary colors found in some early Modern artworks might make many viewers feel cold because they might seem austere, rigid, and overly cerebral; but the wooden, toy-sized maderas created by Torres-García in a new exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art are more warm and playful.

Noted Latin American art scholar Mari Carmen Ramirez curated the exhibition Joaquín Torres-García: Constructing Abstraction with Wood for the prestigious Menil Foundation in Houston, and the current San Diego Museum of Art is the only other venue where the exhibition can be viewed. The several styles of maderas in the SDMA exhibit are mostly intimate scale reliefs and sculptures in abstracted styles. Torres-García’s early works take their inspiration from Cubism, later he was inspired by Pre-Columbian figurative sculpture, and then by Neo-Plasticism (aka De Stijl) and German Expressionism. The artist at one time lived in Europe where he absorbed firsthand the latest artistic trends. He also briefly rubbed elbows with artists like Jean (Hans) Arp, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, and other European artistic intellectuals before moving back to his native Uruguay.

There are many enjoyable works in the exhibition, such as the painted relief, “Formas Superuestas en Color (Superimposed Forms in Color)”(1931), that looks like rough hewn pieces of weathered red, black, mustard, and white painted barn wood—complete with cracks, seams, and a knot hole—nailed together to form a geometric composition similar to a Theo van Doesburg painting. Another elegant sculpture is “Estructura con Varilla Blanca y Circulo Rojo (Structure with Superimposed White Strip and Red Circle)” (1935). It is geometric but also figurative with a narrow blue-black board standing behind a heart-like round red block atop a small narrow piece of white painted wood. Many of Torres-García’s maderas use a vocabulary of geometric shapes presented in lean figurative proportions. Other maderas are just the opposite, being figures with blocky proportions. These show an influence from his days as a toy maker.

In 1924, Torres-García and a partner founded the short-lived Aladdin Toy Company in New York that made small painted wooden figurines, which could be taken apart and then reassembled in different ways. A head, hat, or torso from one figure might be interchanged with the parts from another figure to create yet another different figure and so on. Several artworks are small figurines very similar to his toys but do not come apart. These figurative works appear to have an influence from Pre-Columbian chacmool-style sculptures and are slightly worn looking as if they were used or played with at sometime. This would be expected because the artist advocated primitivism in art making, and he also had four rambunctious offspring that he enjoyed as they ran around his art studio.

Joaquín Torres-García; "Construcción

(Construction)," 1935. Oil on wood.

Dimensions:17-1/8 x 7-3/4 x 2-5/8

inches. Collection of IVAM, Institut

Valencià d’Art Modern Generalitat, Spain.

Image courtesy of SDMA.

The artist’s late works have a unique voice that used words and familiar symbols to embellish his wooden constructions. Collected by major museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.; and several important European collections; Torres-García is little known to the mainstream public in the United States, but his writings and artworks were influential in Latin America.

Torres-García’s charming constructions have an informal character that might appeal to both adults and children. Although, the handsome exhibition is presented in a clean white room with much of the work mounted up behind barriers and/or in Plexiglas boxes at a height that would make it difficult for a small child to view without being carried by a parent.