Cuban-born Antonia Eiriz played a key role in the neo-figurative Cuban movement during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1958, she graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro in Havana and later taught young Cuban artists, such as Tomás Sánchez at the Escuela Nacional de Arte de Cubanacán. Despite her academic training, much of her artistic education is credited to the insight she gained from her mentor, Guido Llinás, a founding member of the abstract expressionist group, Los Once (1953-55). Best known for her expressionist paintings and works on paper, Eiriz’s images emanate a uniquely dark presence. The present lot exhibits Eiriz’s signature approach to depicting suffering through an abstracted form of figuration. By omitting detail in her figure, the artist urges the viewer to focus on the feelings and reactions that the painting conjures. Rendered with dark pigment, this work’s monochromatic palette does not mute its vibrant emphasis on emotion. Instead it explores outbursts of rage and expressionistic human forms set within the context of Cuban life in the 1960s. Eiriz’s work was recently included in Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 at the Hammer Museum in 2017, which will travel to the Brooklyn Museum this year.