In the manner of Francisco Goya
Spanish, 1746–1828
Saturn Checks His Phone, 2026
Oil on plaster, transferred to canvas
123 × 164 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.4.2
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In Goya's picture Saturn eats his son. Here the old man crams a glowing phone into his mouth instead, eyes starting out of his head, the light on his teeth, his other hand clawing at nothing. Behind him the faces of the crowd scream in the dark. Goya painted the original on the wall of his dining room, which says something about his appetite. This one would look very natural above a bed.
The brief
A huge wild-eyed old man crouched in blackness devouring not a body but the bright rectangle of a phone screen, its light on his teeth, his other hand clawed. Late Spanish Romantic oil painting from the black-paintings period, near-monochrome browns, blacks and dirty whites with one passage of blood red, figures with gaping mouths and wide eyes emerging from darkness, coarse dragged brushwork and palette-knife smears, unstable composition, grotesque satire and pity in equal measure, muddy matte surface with cracks. Flat frontal reproduction of the painting, the canvas fills the frame edge to edge, even lighting, no frame, no wall, no text.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
