Mexican Evening

ClassificationsPaintings-watercolors

Artist Millard Sheets (American, 1907 - 1989)

Date1963

Made AtMexico, Central America, North America

Place DepictedMexico, Central America, North America

MediumWatercolor on paper

DimensionsApproximately: 21 3/8 × 29 1/4 in. (54.3 × 74.3 cm)
Framed: 31 3/4 × 39 5/8 × 2 5/8 in. (80.6 × 100.6 × 6.7 cm)

Credit LineAnn and Bill Cullen Memorial Collection

Object number2018.6.32

DescriptionAfter returning to Claremont in 1934, Sheets purchased horses. As a young ranch hand one of his earliest duties was to herd cattle from horseback, but this was his first time he had been in regular proximity to the animals since then. Owning horses awakened something in Sheets, and he began to include them in many of his artworks. This watercolor was likely painted sometime in the latter half of the 20th Century. By this time horses had been a near-constant fixture in Sheets’ work for many years—their ever more cubist forms fitted seamlessly into the dusky light of this painting as if they were all the pieces of a puzzle Sheets had been working on for his entire life. Per the title, this was painted in Mexico. The colorfully dressed figures walking along a hill’s ridge appear to be carrying vessels and textiles above their heads.

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