La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I)

Antonio Martorell, La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I), 2010, woodcut on Japanese paper, sheet and image: 59 x 47 in. (149.9 x 119.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2012.59.1, © 2010, Antonio Martorell

Artwork Details

Title: La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I)
Artist: Antonio Martorell
Date: 2010
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet and image: 59 x 47 in. (149.9 x 119.4 cm)
Copyright: © 2010, Antonio Martorell
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums Description: woodcut on Japanese paper
Classifications: Graphic Arts
Print
Subjects: Cityscape — New York — New York
Architecture — bridge
Figure group — female
Puerto Rican
Object — other — sewing tool
Latinx
Object Number: 2012.59.1
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2012.59.1

Artwork Description

Puerto Ricans who migrated to the continental United States during the early to mid-twentieth century called the rooftops of tenement buildings “tar beaches.” Martorell’s print was inspired by his study of rooftop snapshots that migrants mailed back to relatives on the island. Here a fashionable woman wears a fur-collared coat and sits in front of a New York City skyline. Her hardworking double on the left sits behind a sewing machine. In his Playa Negra (Tar Beach) series, Martorell juxtaposed migrants’ prosperous self-image with a glimpse of their tiring labor.

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, 2013

Los puertorriqueños que emigraron al territorio continental de los Estados Unidos alrededor de la Segunda Guerra Mundial llamaban a los techos de los edificios de apartamentos “playas negras”. La inspiración para el grabado de Martorell surgió de su examen de las fotografías de las azoteas que los inmigrantes enviaban a sus familiares en la isla. En este grabado, una elegante mujer lleva un abrigo con cuello de piel y está sentada frente a una vista de la ciudad de Nueva York. Su doble, una mujer trabajadora, está sentada à la izquierda frente a una máquina de coser. En su serie Playa Negra (Tar Beach), Martorell contrasta la autoimagen próspera de los emigrantes con un reflejo de su arduo trabajo.

Nuestra América: la presencia latina en el arte estadounidense, 2013

Works by this artist (2 items)

La Playa Negra II (Tar Beach II)

Artist

Antonio Martorell

Date2010

woodcut on Japanese paper

La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I)

Artist

Antonio Martorell

Date2010

woodcut on Japanese paper

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Our America Audio Podcast - Antonio Martorell, "La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I)" (English)
Audio podcast, Nuestra America - Antonio Martorell, "La Playa Negra I (Tar Beach I)" (espanol)

ANTONIO MARTORELL: I am Antonio Martorell, an artist from Puerto Rico, and this image shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum of “La Presencia Latina,” “the Latino presence” goes back to my childhood memories of when we received, wrapped in carefully folded envelopes, photographs of our fellow Puerto Ricans, lucky, we thought, migrants who came to New York. Then, in this black-and-white photograph showed off their winter garments, sitting literally on top of the world, smiling at us, making us believe they were so successful, while we were sweating it out in the tropics. But later on when I came to New York many, many years later, I learned the other bitter truth, which it wasn’t so successful, and the lady who posed in that gorgeous fur coat in the 1920s slaved away actually 10 hours a day six days a week in a sewing sweat shop in New York, in Manhattan. So, I decided I would make images, woodblock prints, of two very different attitudes. One, the one for exploration, which is the luxurious appearances, and then the actual lady sewing away. The third character showed up in the corner, which is the photographer with all those old-time flashes flashing at us.

Now, there’s a ribbon on top that goes and says “La Playa Negra,” “Tar Beach” because Americans called the rooftops “Tar Beach” because they are covered with tar, but Puerto Ricans call it “Playa Negra,” literally “black beach” because it’s black. On one side is “Ponce, Puerto Rico,” which is the city where the immigrants came from, and the other one is “New York, USA.” Here they are staring at us, proud and defiantly in their gorgeous garments this supposedly rich relatives living away and flaunting their wealth, although it was not true to our innocent eyes.

But what is a beach, be it tar, be it black or be it whatever, without a wave, so I borrowed Hokusai’s famous wave and made it a tsunami climbing to the top of the New York tenement houses. This is part of a series of four, and it’s the four seasons, and it’s also for decades of the main influx of migration from Puerto Rico, which is the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. This is actually the very first one of that series. This one is number two, number one and number two corresponding to winter and fall, and I’m very happy they chose this one because it’s the first one I did. Its showing brought me back very fond memories, and actually my mother was a seamstress – although she never went away, she remained at home sewing for us – but I relate to the labors, to the working. Being an artist myself I work with my hands, so I feel a kindred spirit to anyone who works with their hands and makes or tries to make a living out of it.

Related Books

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art explores how Latino artists shaped the artistic movements of their day and recalibrated key themes in American art and culture. This beautifully illustrated volume presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge. Our America includes works by artists who participated in all the various artistic styles and movements, including abstract expressionism; activist, conceptual, and performance art; and classic American genres such as landscape, portraiture, and scenes of everyday life.

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Media - 2011.12 - SAAM-2011.12_1 - 77591

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art

October 25, 2013–March 2, 2014

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge.