Aubrey Williams

Death and the Conquistador

1959

© The estate of Aubrey Williams

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Not on display
Artist
Aubrey Williams 1926–1990
Medium
Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions
Confirmed: 835 x 1338 x 22 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Purchased 2011
Reference
T13341

Display caption

Death and the Conquistador demonstrates Williams’s engagement with debates around abstraction in Europe and America, and its subject matter has roots in the memory of his early life in Guyana. Through the depiction of a field of bone-like shapes resembling human or animal forms, he addresses the colonisation of Latin America by the conquistadors (soldiers in the service of Spain and Portugal). Williams stated that ‘the crux of the matter… inherent in my work … has been the human predicament, especially with regard to the Guyanese situation’.

Gallery label, September 2016

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