Handshake over Europa

Details

Mario Dubsky (1939-1985)
Handshake over Europa
signed and inscribed 'Handshake over/Europa/Dubsky' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
60 x 60 in. (152.4 x 152.4 cm.)
Painted in 1975.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, X Factor 1984, London, South London Art Gallery, 1984, p.23, illustrated.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The present work represents the meeting between the Russian spacecraft 'Soyuz 19' and the American Apollo in the Summer of 1975. The Russian spacecraft Soyuz invited their foreign "guests" to the Mir space station and docked with the American spacecraft. The work depicts the 'actual gesture of the Russians and the Americans shaking hands in a space encounter above Europe' (see Exhib. cat. South London Art Gallery, X Factor 1984, 18 May - 21 June 1984, p.22) The iconography of the work derives from Dubsky's visit in early 1975 to the Natural History Museum where 'I (Dubsky) started drawing some of the dinosaurs and other prehistoric bones' (see ibid. p.20).

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