Raúl Anguiano
Encyclopedia
José Raúl Anguiano Valadez (February 26, 1915 – January 13, 2006) was a Mexican critical realist
painter
, draftsman, mural
ist, and engraver, as well as a member of the second generation of the so-called "Mexican School of Painting" in Mexican art
, along with Juan O'Gorman
, Judith Gutierrez
, Jorge González Camarena
, José Chávez Morado
, Alfredo Zalce, Jesús Guerrero Galván
, Julio Castellanos
, among others. Anguiano's work dealt with and reflected issues that affected Mexico and its people. His way of thinking was eclectic and anti sectarian, as reflected in his artistic expression.
His first solo exhibition was Raúl Anguiano y Máximo Pacheco at the Palacio de Bellas Artes
(Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City
in 1935. He would exhibit at that same location again in 1949 and 1982, and in countries worldwide, such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States, throughout his career. He is arguably best known for his oil-on-canvas La Espina (National Museum of Art, Mexico City), La Llorona (Museum of Modern Art
, New York), and for three murals commissioned in 1967 by the Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. His work is in the collections of renowned museums in Mexico City, New York, California, Beijing, Brussels, Warsaw, Rome, among others.
. Son of Abigail Valadez and José Anguiano, he was the first of eight children. As a child he spent long periods of time drawing, copying portraits of movie stars that he admired or photographs that his father had taken during the Mexican Revolution
. His first aesthetic influence was a black-and-white print by Italian Master Raphael
. The work, titled the Holy Family, reaffirmed his interest in a rigorous, classical, Italian style.
's Last Judgement, Stanze di Raffaello
(Italian for "Raphael's rooms"), works in the museum, and live models. Being the youngest in class, he was nicknamed "Rafaelito", or small Raphael. Upon entering preparatory school at age 13, Anguiano met drawing instructor José Vizcarra, who discovered Anguiano's talent and offered to train him at no cost.
. The group published a magazine by the same name, organized conferences and painting and sculpture exhibitions, in which Anguiano participated (often with oils on board because he could not afford linen). The group had a strong impact on Anguiano's intellectual development; it introduced him to important reading materials such as Giacomo Leopardi
's Dialogues, Niccolò Machiavelli
's The Prince, Magic Realism by Franz Roh
, and Exemplary Lives by Romain Rolland
(the latter being the most influential to the artist). He was also interested in the poetry of Comte de Lautréamont
, Paul Marie Verlaine, Edgar Allan Poe
, Charles Baudelaire
, and Arthur Rimbaud
.
, José Clemente Orozco
, and David Alfaro Siqueiros
(all of revolutionary ideas), in social and economic issues, workers’ movements and unions, in the Russian revolution
, etc. In 1936 he became Secretary General of the Fine Arts Professors Union – having joined the Fine Arts Workers Alliance, Anguiano had easy access to bureaucratic positions.
, in the city of Morelia
. While still employing typically Mexican techniques, Anguiano also adopted some of the improved and diversified processes behind the work of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. He painted several murals under the commission of important institutions such as the National Chamber of Commerce and the National Museum of Anthropology.
In the 1930s and 40s, Anguiano created drawings and paintings of a fantastic quality, as well as murals, drawings, and banners of clear political content. During that time he often visited the "low" neighborhoods, circuses and cabarets, and made several works based on his experiences there. From 1936 to 1942 Anguiano created what he considered to be some of his most interesting works, among them being La Llorona, later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His painting in the 1940s is characterized by gray and white tones, and by the sobriety of his subjects. Some consider this one to be one of his best artistic periods.
(LEAR), through which he met other artists and intellectuals who influenced his development (members were painters Alfredo Zalce, Chávez Morado, and Nobel Prize-winner Octavio Paz
, among others), participated in cultural brigades, strikes, mural painting, exhibition planning, book publication, etc. The bureaucratization of the LEAR by several opportunistic members encouraged artists Raúl Anguiano, Leopoldo Méndez, Alfredo Zalce, and Pablo O'Higgins
to found the Taller de Grafica Popular (Popular Graphics Workshop), which supported striving workers and peasants, worked for better salaries, ample education, and stood against war and fascism. The workshop was based on Mexico's popular traditions (it had not been long since engraver José Guadalupe Posada
's art had been rediscovered and exalted) and yet had ties to the art and artists of the world.
and Miguel Cubiles
, where he studied for two months. Living in a cold Greenwich Village
apartment, Anguiano painted in the morning, visited galleries and museums in the afternoon, and returned to painting at night.
His daily visits to New York's many galleries and museums left long-lasting impressions on him. Particularly influential was the work of Paul Cézanne
, El Greco
, Diego Velázquez
, Tintoretto
, Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso
, and Vincent van Gogh
. As a result, his technique, color and composition changed. This stylistic transformation is evident in portraits and compositional paintings such as the Retrato de María Asúnsolo (portrait of María Asúnsolo), selected for the exhibition Retratos del Siglo XX at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Greek-Egyptian engraving was also important in that it opened his eyes to a more universal view of art.
All the work produced during his stay in New York, as well as works he had brought from Mexico, were left at the Blanche Bonestell Gallery. Anguiano never received financial compensation for those works; neither did he ever see them again.
. Upon his return, he began teaching nude figure drawing at the National Institute of Fine Arts’ (INBA) La Esmeralda, painting and sculpture school in Mexico City.
In 1945 Anguiano joined the Mexican Society of Lectures and Studies, through which he participated in conferences and exhibitions.
in the Mexican state of Chiapas
. Fotographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo
was among the several travel companions. Despite the potential dangers of embarking in such a trip (two expedition members drowned in the Lacanjá river while at work), Anguiano accepted and greatly benefited from it, gathering information that would materialize in over two years of work and an exhibition at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana
in Mexico City. Anguiano became increasingly interested in the lives of the locals, particularly the lacandones, Indigenous Native American Maya people, and eventually published a diary on the Lacandonan jungle, which includes a series of drawings and paintings depicting the Lacandonan people, their customs, and their mysterious and imposing environment.
in Mexico City the morning after his death. He left three children: Carmen, Marina and Pablo. He also had two stepchildren by wife Brigita: Lynda and Mark.
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, draftsman, mural
Mural
A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.-History:Murals of...
ist, and engraver, as well as a member of the second generation of the so-called "Mexican School of Painting" in Mexican art
Mexican art
Mexican art consists of the various visual and plastic arts which developed over the geographical area now known as Mexico. The development of these arts roughly follow the history of Mexico, divided into the Mesoamerican era, the colonial period, with the period after the gaining of Independence...
, along with Juan O'Gorman
Juan O'Gorman
Juan O'Gorman was a Mexican painter and architect.-Biography:O'Gorman was born in Coyoacán, then a village to the south of Mexico City and now a borough of the Federal District, to an Irish father, Cecil Crawford O'Gorman and a Mexican mother...
, Judith Gutierrez
Judith Gutierrez
Judith Gutiérrez a master Latin American painter who worked in Ecuador and Mexico....
, Jorge González Camarena
Jorge González Camarena
Jorge González Camarena was a prominent Mexican painter, muralist and sculptor who received the Mexican National Prize for Arts and Sciences...
, José Chávez Morado
José Chávez Morado
José Chávez Morado was a Mexican painter and sculptor.- Biography :Morado was born in Silao, near the city of Guanajuato, where Diego Rivera was born, and like Rivera he is a well known and highly regarded painter and sculptor who became most famous for the murals he painted in Mexico in the first...
, Alfredo Zalce, Jesús Guerrero Galván
Jesús Guerrero Galván
-Biography:Guerrero Galván was born in Tonalá, Jalisco, in 1910. He studied at the San Antonio Art School in Texas and in 1928 he moved to Guadalajara, where he made his first mural, to study at the Escuela de Pintura Libre. He lived in Mexico City in the 1930s and became quite known for his...
, Julio Castellanos
Julio Castellanos
Julio Castellanos was a Mexican painter and engraver.- Biography :Castellanos matriculated the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1918, where he studied under Saturnino Herrán and Leandro Izaguirre, together with Agustín Lazo, Rufino Tamayo and Leopoldo Méndez...
, among others. Anguiano's work dealt with and reflected issues that affected Mexico and its people. His way of thinking was eclectic and anti sectarian, as reflected in his artistic expression.
His first solo exhibition was Raúl Anguiano y Máximo Pacheco at the Palacio de Bellas Artes
Palacio de Bellas Artes
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the most important cultural center in Mexico City as well as the rest of the country of Mexico...
(Palace of Fine Arts) in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
in 1935. He would exhibit at that same location again in 1949 and 1982, and in countries worldwide, such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States, throughout his career. He is arguably best known for his oil-on-canvas La Espina (National Museum of Art, Mexico City), La Llorona (Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York), and for three murals commissioned in 1967 by the Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. His work is in the collections of renowned museums in Mexico City, New York, California, Beijing, Brussels, Warsaw, Rome, among others.
Background
Raúl Anguiano was born in Guadalajara, JaliscoGuadalajara, Jalisco
Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...
. Son of Abigail Valadez and José Anguiano, he was the first of eight children. As a child he spent long periods of time drawing, copying portraits of movie stars that he admired or photographs that his father had taken during the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
. His first aesthetic influence was a black-and-white print by Italian Master Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
. The work, titled the Holy Family, reaffirmed his interest in a rigorous, classical, Italian style.
Early career
At age 12, Anguiano entered the Free School of Painting at the Museum of the state of Jalisco, in Guadalajara, where he began drawing his surroundings and copying from prints of MichelangeloMichelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
's Last Judgement, Stanze di Raffaello
Raphael Rooms
The four Stanze di Raffaello in the Palace of the Vatican form a suite of reception rooms, the public part of the papal apartments. They are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop...
(Italian for "Raphael's rooms"), works in the museum, and live models. Being the youngest in class, he was nicknamed "Rafaelito", or small Raphael. Upon entering preparatory school at age 13, Anguiano met drawing instructor José Vizcarra, who discovered Anguiano's talent and offered to train him at no cost.
Straying From the Academia
In an attempt to abandon academic training and find his own path, Anguiano joined a group of artists and intellectuals named Bandera de Provincias at the age of 15. The group was often visited by well-known artists such as Mexican architect Luis BarragánLuis Barragán
Luis Barragán Morfin was a Mexican architect. He was self-trained.-Early life:Educated as an engineer, he graduated from the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros in Guadalajara in 1923 and was self-trained as an architect.After graduation, he travelled through Spain, France , and...
. The group published a magazine by the same name, organized conferences and painting and sculpture exhibitions, in which Anguiano participated (often with oils on board because he could not afford linen). The group had a strong impact on Anguiano's intellectual development; it introduced him to important reading materials such as Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist...
's Dialogues, Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...
's The Prince, Magic Realism by Franz Roh
Franz Roh
Franz Roh , was a German historian, photographer, and art critic.Roh was born in Apolda , Germany. He studied at universities in Leipzig, Berlin, and Basel. In 1920, he received his Ph. D...
, and Exemplary Lives by Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
(the latter being the most influential to the artist). He was also interested in the poetry of Comte de Lautréamont
Comte de Lautréamont
Comte de Lautréamont was the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse , an Uruguayan-born French poet....
, Paul Marie Verlaine, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, and Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
.
Early Work
Anguiano's family became impoverished when his father neglected his shoe-making business to participate in politics, activity that offered no financial reward. This forced the artist to become a drawing teacher in Guadalajara's primary schools at age 17, leaving little time to drawing and painting. Anguiano and his friends rented a studio, where friends and workers in need of cash posed for them. He often remembered "La Chala", a woman with Asian traits and long, straight hair. This physical type is seen throughout his oeuvre.Career in Mexico City
Upon losing his job as a drawing teacher and considering his family's financial situation, Anguiano moved to Mexico City in 1934, where he lived with family members. Because he befriended several revolutionaries (Mexican artist Jesús Guerrero Galván among them) and began drifting away from provincialism and moving toward a more radical ideology, finding a job proved to be difficult. He was interested in the work of Mexican muralists Diego RiveraDiego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
, José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco
José Clemente Orozco was a Mexican social realist painter, who specialized in bold murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others...
, and David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros
José David Alfaro Siqueiros was a social realist painter, known for his large murals in fresco that helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance, together with works by Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and also a member of the Mexican Communist Party who participated in an...
(all of revolutionary ideas), in social and economic issues, workers’ movements and unions, in the Russian revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, etc. In 1936 he became Secretary General of the Fine Arts Professors Union – having joined the Fine Arts Workers Alliance, Anguiano had easy access to bureaucratic positions.
Mural painting
Anguiano began his career as a muralist in 1936 with two works, Revolución and Contrarevolución, both in the Revolutionary Confederation of Labor of the state of MichoacánMichoacán
Michoacán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 113 municipalities and its capital city is Morelia...
, in the city of Morelia
Morelia
Morelia is a city and municipality in the north central part of the state of Michoacán in central Mexico. The city is in the Guayangareo Valley and is the capital of the state. The main pre-Hispanic cultures here were the P'urhépecha and the Matlatzinca, but no major cities were founded in the...
. While still employing typically Mexican techniques, Anguiano also adopted some of the improved and diversified processes behind the work of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. He painted several murals under the commission of important institutions such as the National Chamber of Commerce and the National Museum of Anthropology.
In the 1930s and 40s, Anguiano created drawings and paintings of a fantastic quality, as well as murals, drawings, and banners of clear political content. During that time he often visited the "low" neighborhoods, circuses and cabarets, and made several works based on his experiences there. From 1936 to 1942 Anguiano created what he considered to be some of his most interesting works, among them being La Llorona, later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His painting in the 1940s is characterized by gray and white tones, and by the sobriety of his subjects. Some consider this one to be one of his best artistic periods.
Print workshop
Among his many activities, Anguiano joined the Federation of Writers and Proletarian Artists (FEAP), and later the League of Writers and Revolutionary ArtistsLiga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios
The Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios was a Mexican association of revolutionary artists and writers. It was established in the house of its first president Leopoldo Méndez in 1933 in due to the disbanded "Sindicato de Trabajadores Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores" , and was defined as...
(LEAR), through which he met other artists and intellectuals who influenced his development (members were painters Alfredo Zalce, Chávez Morado, and Nobel Prize-winner Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
, among others), participated in cultural brigades, strikes, mural painting, exhibition planning, book publication, etc. The bureaucratization of the LEAR by several opportunistic members encouraged artists Raúl Anguiano, Leopoldo Méndez, Alfredo Zalce, and Pablo O'Higgins
Pablo O'Higgins
Pablo Esteban O'Higgins was an American-Mexican artist, muralist and illustrator....
to found the Taller de Grafica Popular (Popular Graphics Workshop), which supported striving workers and peasants, worked for better salaries, ample education, and stood against war and fascism. The workshop was based on Mexico's popular traditions (it had not been long since engraver José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada
Jose Guadalupe Posada: was a Mexican cartoonist illustrator and artist whose work has influenced many Latin American artists and cartoonists because of its satirical acuteness and political engagement....
's art had been rediscovered and exalted) and yet had ties to the art and artists of the world.
Plastic arts
In his last years of life, he joined "La Pandilla" with renowned plastic artists like Jose SacalJose sacal
José Sacal is a sculptor and ceramist born in Mexico . His work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox with the subconscious mind. His art is essence because it arrives from the deepest of his feelings expressed through the beings he creates...
and Miguel Cubiles
Life in New York
In 1940 Anguiano visited New York for the first time. With the help of artist Stefan Hirsch, he was granted a scholarship at the Art Students LeagueArt Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
, where he studied for two months. Living in a cold Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
apartment, Anguiano painted in the morning, visited galleries and museums in the afternoon, and returned to painting at night.
His daily visits to New York's many galleries and museums left long-lasting impressions on him. Particularly influential was the work of Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
, El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
, Diego Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
, Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...
, Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, and Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
. As a result, his technique, color and composition changed. This stylistic transformation is evident in portraits and compositional paintings such as the Retrato de María Asúnsolo (portrait of María Asúnsolo), selected for the exhibition Retratos del Siglo XX at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Greek-Egyptian engraving was also important in that it opened his eyes to a more universal view of art.
All the work produced during his stay in New York, as well as works he had brought from Mexico, were left at the Blanche Bonestell Gallery. Anguiano never received financial compensation for those works; neither did he ever see them again.
Return to Mexico
At the end of February 1941 Anguiano boarded a ship headed to the port of VeracruzVeracruz, Veracruz
Veracruz, officially known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located in the central part of the state. It is located along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most...
. Upon his return, he began teaching nude figure drawing at the National Institute of Fine Arts’ (INBA) La Esmeralda, painting and sculpture school in Mexico City.
In 1945 Anguiano joined the Mexican Society of Lectures and Studies, through which he participated in conferences and exhibitions.
Expedition to Bonampak
In 1949 Anguiano was invited to participate in an expedition to the archeological zone of BonampakBonampak
Bonampak is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The site is approximately south of the larger site of Yaxchilan, under which Bonampak was a dependency, and the border with Guatemala...
in the Mexican state of Chiapas
Chiapas
Chiapas officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 118 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutierrez. Other important cites in Chiapas include San Cristóbal de las...
. Fotographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo was a Mexican photographer.Álvarez Bravo was born in Mexico City on February 4, 1902. He came from a family of artists and writers, and met several other prominent artists who encouraged his work when he was young, including Tina Modotti and Diego Rivera...
was among the several travel companions. Despite the potential dangers of embarking in such a trip (two expedition members drowned in the Lacanjá river while at work), Anguiano accepted and greatly benefited from it, gathering information that would materialize in over two years of work and an exhibition at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana
Salón de la Plástica Mexicana
The Salón de la Plástica Mexicana is an art museum of plastic arts, which was founded by a group of notable artists on November 16, 1949. Today the SPM is located in the Calle de Colima 196 in the Colonia Roma and in the Donceles 99 in the Centro Histórico of Mexico City...
in Mexico City. Anguiano became increasingly interested in the lives of the locals, particularly the lacandones, Indigenous Native American Maya people, and eventually published a diary on the Lacandonan jungle, which includes a series of drawings and paintings depicting the Lacandonan people, their customs, and their mysterious and imposing environment.
Death
Anguiano was in Los Angeles, California, when he began feeling ill and asked his wife, Brigita, to take him back to Mexico. He was flown to Mexico in a presidential jet and admitted to Mexico City's Central Military Hospital with heart problems. He died on Friday night at age 90. A ceremony was held at the Palace of Fine ArtsPalace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, is a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is the only one still...
in Mexico City the morning after his death. He left three children: Carmen, Marina and Pablo. He also had two stepchildren by wife Brigita: Lynda and Mark.
External links
- Listings for over 125 works produced by Raúl Anguiano during his time at the Taller de Gráfica Popular can be viewed at Gráfica Mexciana.