Alfonso Michel

(Colima, 1897 – Mexico City, 1957)

Fruit Bowl with Eight Cherries

n.d.

mixed media on fibracel

55 x 59 cm

Inv. no. CAB090

BBVA Collection Mexico



The well-assimilated sources of Alfonso Michel’s painting can be traced back to Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Georges Braque (1882-1963) and Georges Rouault (1851-1958), and, from Mexico, one can readily acknowledge above all the influence of Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991). That notwithstanding, the complexity of his still lifes, flower vases, interiors and nudes make him an unclassifiable artist.

From late
Michel borrowed the fractal structure of motifs (glass objects, mirrors) that multiply the angles in their mutual reflection, while the vocabularies of
and Surrealism can be noted in the enigmatic atmospheres and symbolic figures like the sea, death and horses.

The artist’s intuitive association of disparate motifs, at once inexplicable and pleasing, generally induces highly poetical and introspective reactions. Here, with a very sophisticated composition and using his signature range of greys, pinks and blues, in the foreground the painter places a fruit bowl and a glass that seem to float against a deliberately unfinished ethereal backdrop.

Probably painted in the artist’s final decade, the still life Fruit Bowl with Eight Cherries combines an introspective and metaphoric intent. Distancing himself from the orthodoxy of nineteenth-century still lifes, Michel creates an artificial space aimed at underscoring the visual values of the painting. The geometrization of the volume of the bowl imbues the image with a concentric force, somewhat attenuated by the palette of pastel tones. Chiselled with the palette knife or worked with delicate brushstrokes, he uses the material to create a “sculptural” effect that characterizes, not just this piece, but indeed the whole of the artist’s scant production, consisting of barely sixty works (including drawings, sketches and ceramic pieces).