This work on paper was part of a generous donation to the Mendocino Art Center by Janet and David Peoples in 2023.

This work illustrates a skull representing death enveloping a man. A red line stretches from the man's penis to the top of the skull.

Luis Cruz Azaceta was born in Havana, Cuba in 1942. Growing up, his family was largely non-political, but as the revolution in Cuba gained momentum in the 1950s with Fidel Castro’s rise to power, he felt increasing pressure to leave the country. He escaped to the United States at the age of 18, eventually settling in New York City. He went on to attend at the School of Visual Arts, receiving a BFA in 1969. He currently lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Azaceta has exhibited internationally and was the subject of a career retrospective organized by the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, Miami in 2016. He has been the recipient of several major grants and awards including a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant in 1985, a Mid-Atlantic Grant for special projects in 1989, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2009. His work is included in major public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; El Museo del Barrio, New York; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Monterrey, Mexico, among others.