I am a Mexican painter of portraits, self-portraits and works drawn from the nature and artifacts of Mexico. I use a naive folk art style to question identity, postcolonialism, gender, class and race in Mexican society.
Teaching 'Los Fridos' from the street and La Casa Azul
4 milestones
Moved classes from La Esmeralda to La Casa Azul and taught street-trained students as health declined.
André Breton invited a Paris exhibit after a New York debut; the show and ensuing recognition came days before WWII.
Filled notebooks with sketches during an engraving apprenticeship and studied natural sciences, considering medical art.
Bedridden for three months at 18, began painting with a custom easel and a mirror, initiating sustained self-portraiture
Before I chose art as a career I studied drawing with printmaker Fernando Fernández and, in 1925, became his paid engraving apprentice; I also learned photo retouching. That training gave my art its precise line.
My artistic ambition was to paint for the Mexican people. Within Mexicanidad I drew on Indigenous culture and folk art to resist the colonial idea that Europe defines civilization.