Jaume Blassi
Cueva de las manos (Cave of the hands). Pre-Tehuelche cave paintings, 8000 B.C. Cañadón del Río Pinturas, Patagonia, Province of Santa Cruz, Argentina

Cueva de las manos (Cave of the hands). Pre-Tehuelche cave paintings, 8000 B.C. Cañadón del Río Pinturas, Patagonia, Province of Santa Cruz, Argentina

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Images(4)

Artist Jaume Blassi (Spanish, born 1948)Spanish, born 1948

CultureSpanish

Titles

Cueva de las manos (Cave of the hands). Pre-Tehuelche cave paintings, 8000 B.C. Cañadón del Río Pinturas, Patagonia, Province of Santa Cruz, Argentina

Date1991

Place depictedSanta Cruz, Argentina

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 13 7/8 × 19 1/16 in. (35.2 × 48.4 cm)
Sheet: 15 13/16 × 19 15/16 in. (40.2 × 50.6 cm)

Credit LineGift of the artist

Object number95.6

Current Location

The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building

Gallery 208

On view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionMesolithic people living in the Pinturas River Valley of Argentina about 8,000 B.C. left stenciled outlines of their hands on the walls of what is today known as the Cave of Hands. By blowing natural mineral pigments onto the rock around their spread fingers, these early artists left impressions of themselves in the negative space, presaging by some 9,000 years a technology they could not have dreamed of—photography—which allows people to mark their presence through contact not with pigments but light.
ProvenanceThe artist; given to MFAH, 1995.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

The photograph is signed and dated in pencil, verso, " CAÑADON RIO PINTURAS- CUEVA DE LAS MANOS 8,000-10,000 A.C. ARGENTINA - SANTA CRUZ 1991 PRINT SULIOL 92 ORIENTAL 3 DEKTOL Jaume Blassi "

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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