#Mexican Muralists

[nancydrewwouldnever]

Diego Rivera, Weaving, 1936, tempera & oil/canvas (Art Institute, Chicago)

[uwmspeccoll]

Fine Press Friday! 

Our Limited Editions Club Shakespeare series keeps giving us more artists to look for in our collection! This week we found Carmen, by Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870) illustrated by French-born American painter and illustrator, Jean Charlot (1898-1979), published by the Limited Editions Club, New York, in 1941 in an unstated limited edition of 1500 copies signed by the artist. We learned about this edition because of the post we did a couple of weeks ago on Charlot’s illustrated edition of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3.

Mérimée’s 1846 novel about the eponymous Romani beauty, is most popularly well known from Georges Bizet’s famous opera of the same name, which is based on Part III of Mérimée’s story. The action is set in 1830s Andalusia, but Jean Charlot’s illustrations gives the story a Mexican flavor. Charlot worked mainly in Mexico and was a member of the Mexican Muralist Movement, sharing a studio with Fernando Leal who is considered to be one of the first Mexican Muralists. It was after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) that the new government sought to use murals to educate the public on social justice issues. From a young age, Charlot was fascinated by Mexican art and pre-Columbian artefacts and his mature work reflects this fascination, including in these illustrations.

The thirty-seven multi-layered color lithographs, which Charlot drew directly on the printing matrix, feel like miniature frescoes. Charlot laid down quick marks to color large areas of the image, which layer in overlapping color to give the image a lively energy. One could easily imagine one of the illustrations used as a page header as a mural above a doorway, signaling a transition. Or, one of the larger full-page illustrations as a mural on a large wall. I am taken by how these illustrations function well in both architectural and book spaces. The book is architecture.  

The lithographs were printed by Charlot’s friend Albert Carman in New York and the type is 18-point Linotype Bodoni printed by Aldus Printers in New York. . The paper was made by the Worthy Paper Company, was watermarked with the name of the book and the covers are wrapped in a vibrant hand-blocked color silk.

View more Limited Edition Club posts.

View more Fine Press Friday posts.

– Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[fashionbooksmilano]

Prada  Spring Summer 2014

Prada, Milano 2013, 188 pagine, 24 x 28 cm

euro 90,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Prada to present “In the Heart of the Multitude”, featuring the work of four muralists and two illustrators on the walls of the S/S14 Women's fashion show On September 19, 2013, Prada will present In the Heart of the Multitude, a new project in their long tradition of creative collaborations. As part of the environment for the Spring/Summer 2014 Women's fashion show, Prada invited muralists Miles “El Mac” Gregor, Mesa, Gabriel Specter, and Stinkfish, and illustrators Jeanne Detallante and Pierre Mornet, to engage themes of femininity, representation, power, and multiplicity on the walls of the Via Fogazzaro show space in Milan. The concept originated from an interest in the political wall art from Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco combined with on-going exploration into large-scale wall installations at the Prada Broadway epicenter and other sites worldwide. In conjunction with 2x4, the New York-based design firm and long-time creative collaborator, Prada conducted a global research and commissioned these six young artists and illustrators, known for their distinctive style, color sensibility and approach to figurative representation, to work directly in the show space. The walls were reshaped to maximize the structural variation and provide multiple planes on which the artists could realize their visions.

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12/02/23

[the-cricket-chirps]

Frida Kahlo, Girl with Death Mask, 1938

Diego Rivera, detail, Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central Park (Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central), 1947

[canvasmirror]

Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886-1957) • Self-portrait: The Ravages of Time • 1949 • Private collection

[sunlilys]

roberto montenegro (1885-1968). untitled (tehuanas in huipil grande headdresses).

[images-mcm-mexico-california]

Orosco

[macabre-discotheque]

every now and then i will have a thought about the 70s and then spontaneously combust into a thousand fla[gets dragged away by security]

[sheltiechicago]

Smithe is the "Savant"

Smithe is a Méxican illustrator & muralist currently based in Mexico City. He is influenced by old local comics, graphic style of the 50's, Japanese anime and Sci-Fi movies. At the age of 13, Smithe began painting graffiti for fun and as a hobby.

[girls--complex]

hi, love your work a lot! it manages to blend coherence with layers of esoterica, in a fun & meaningful way. do you have any big influences with your style?

Writing this as a narrative because my whimsicall mind can't seem to organize information logickally otherwise

So

When I was a child my Dad would show me a lot of comics/cartoons in all different styles/eras and so I was internalizing comic book logic from the very beginning. He really liked American comix both capes and Indie stuff but was also into franco belgian artists and let's be clear my papa has good taste so I was readying good stuff though I couldn't remember it all too reliably... Also Comics Journal, so I was reading comics & meta about comics. So basically I have like a deep archetypal brain stem dark spring of mind that spits out raw comic information like a dream that I can't place until I rediscover them, and a lot of deep unremembered imprintations that R kinda roiling around under the surface #Stupidsoldier

N then I was a deviantart kiddo and a reading manga at barnes and noble kiddo, and then I went and got a formal art education and learned about all these artists that sort of did pseudo comics or cartoons but didnt articulate it that way-- The German xpressionists are a big example of this -- and also about overall principles of like scale and hierarchy and time and presence -- and also just that I really like drawin the human figure in particular :)

I'm really grateful that my parents especially my dad were actually really supportive/invested in me being an artist even though they had very little faith in my character or overall competence. so I was always doing art activities to make me better at drawing because that was like the one redeeming quality I had, a lot of household resources went into me having art tutoring or doing community classes, and I was really strongly encouraged to get ma BFA

So 4 influences well I like things that are very stylish but very specific in how they represent figure N physiognomy... Naoki Urosawa & Jeff Smith were fascinations 2 me along this line... Arakawa is good too... I feel like this is a strength of American and British cartoonists generally but struggling to think of names

My favorite painter is tied between two commies: Siqueiros, who was a Mexican muralist and chaotic socialist, really specific markmaking and texture, pathos drenched figuration, charged epic landscapes, and Petrov-Vodkin, Russian ikonographer who became a propagandist for the USSR, semi-social-realist, semi-ikonographic compositions in which space is wrapping around itself to organize human figures according to a mythological logic, flattish, very cartoons/comics aligned, strange treatment of color but all really effective

History painting overall is everything to me it really doesn't show in Coward but I think it shows elsewhere some of my other dramatic sensibility is a lot from 00s action movie shlock which I would always enjoy to go see when I was younger and was somehow fascinated with the environment of government buildings and prisons and secret operations happeningunder the surface of every day life erupting into wet violence of men punching each other

I love the movie THE RAID redemption !!!!

I learned a lot of the logic of pacing N building pages around Tezuka's work as well as FMA N Death Note I think were big 1s to teach me that logic. Tezuka is a really good artist to look at for how to compose a page that supports the energy of the events that are happening on it, not that that's something I personally am good at. Favorite mangaka for tone and environment and visual identity are Katsuhiro Otomo, Tustomu Nihei, Suehiro Maruo, Nishioka siblings, Hideshi Hino

A lot of my sense of timing is also from news paper strips tbh. It's just a gut thing to me at this point hehe , Character design is also a gut thing for me I draw a little thing and I can either ensoul it with psychosexual fixation or I can't

I was born in the hospital Henry Darger worked at St. Joe's he's an ancestor to me but ofc inimitable by virtue of GOD being his sole audience

As for the esoterickal dimensions I feel like it's all it's own post let's just say I lack the inclination and ability for systematic and rigorous study but I am really interesting in gathering little packets of information and arranging them into dioramas and the longer I do it the more packets I accrue

I want to make a list of artists on here that I like/admire sometime too but that's too much for me rn. I also suspect a lot of people R mad at me for arbitrary reasons just as I also am mad at a lot of people for arbitrary reasons so I dont wanna bother no one ...

Oh well so I'm intentionally reorganizing how I draw right now because I sense a shift in my trajectory again so thanks for making me reflect

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

María Félix (Doña Barbara, La Mujer sin Alma, Rio Escondido, La Cucaracha)—Maria Felix is still possibly the most well-known Mexican film actress. She turned down multiple-roles in Hollywood and a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer in order to take roles in Mexico, France, and Argentine throughout the 1940s, 50s, 60s. She was so famous and so respected as a dramatic actress that she inspired painters, novelists and poets in their own art--she was painted by Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco, Bridget Tichenor. The novelist Carlos Fuentes used her as inspiration for his protagonist in Zona Sagrada. She inspired an entire collection by Hermes. In the late 1960s Cartier made her a custom collection of reptile themed jewels. She considered herself to be powerful challenger of morality and femininity in Mexico & worldwide--she routinely played powerful women in roles with challenging moral choices and free sexuality. But even still, years after he death, she is celebrated with Google Doodles, and appearances in the movie Coco, and holidays for the anniversary of her death.

Frances Farmer (Among the Living)— has multiple songs written about her, a mentally ill icon, sexy as fuck and a feminist icon

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

María Félix:

She's Thee Hot Vintage Movie Woman of México. She's absolutely gorgeous and always looks like she's about to step on you. you WILL be thankful if she does.

"María Félix is a woman -- such a woman -- with the audacity to defy the ideas machos have constructed of what a woman should be. She's free like the wind, she disperses the clouds, or illuminates them with the lightning flash of her gaze." - Octavio Paz

María Félix is one of the most iconic actresses of the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema. La Doña, as she was lovingly nicknamed, only had one son, and when her first marriage ended in divorce her ex-husband stole her only child, so she vowed that one day she’d be more influential than her ex and she’d get her son back. AND SHE DID! María Félix rejected a Hollywood acting role to start her acting career in Mexico on her own terms with El Peñón de las Ánimas (The Rock of Souls) starring alongside actor, and future third husband, Jorge Negrete. She quickly rose to incredible heights both in Mexico and abroad, later on rejecting a Hollywood starring role (Duel in the Sun) as she was already committed to the movie Enamorada at the planned filming time. Of this snubbing she said, quote: “I will never regret saying no to Hollywood, because my career in Europe was focused in [high] quality cinema. [My] india* roles are made in my country, and [my] queen roles are abroad.” (Translator notes: here the “india” role means interpreting a lower-class Mexican woman, usually thought of indigenous/native/mixed descent —which she had interpreted and reinvented throughout her acting career in Mexico— and what abroad was typically considered the Mexican woman stereotype, with the braids, long simple skirts, and sandals. This also references the expectation of her possibly helping Hollywood in perpetuating this stereotype for American audiences that lack the cultural and historical contexts of this type of role which would undermine her own efforts against this type of Mexican stereotypes while working in Europe) She was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world of her time by international magazines like Life, París Match, and Esquire, and was a muse to a vast number of songwriters (including her second husband Agustin Lara,), artists, designers, and writers. Muralist Diego Rivera described her as “a monstrously perfect being. She’s an exemplary being that drives all other human beings to put as much effort as possible to be like her”. Playwriter Jean Cocteau, who worked with her in the Spanish film La Corona Negra (The Black Crown) said the following about her, “María, that woman is so beautiful it hurts”. Haute Couture houses like Dior, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Hérmes, among others, designed and dressed her throughout her life. She died on her birthday, April 8, 2002, at 88 years old, in Mexico City. She was celebrated by a parade from her home to the Fine Arts Palace in the the city’s Historic Downtown, where a multitude of people paid tribute to her. Her filmography includes 47 movies from 1942 until 1970, and only two television acting roles in 1970. She has 2 music albums, one recorded with her second husband, Agustín Lara, in 1964 titled La Voz de María y la inspiración de Agustín «The voice of María and the inspiration of Augustín», and her solo album Enamorada «In Love» in 1998. Her bespoke Cartier jewelry is exhibited alongside Elizabeth Taylor’s, Grace Kelly’s and Gloria Swanson’s. In 2018, Film Director Martin Scorsese presented a restored and remastered version of her film Enamorada in the Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Festival and Google dedicated a doodle for her 104th birthday. On august 2023 Barbie added her doll to the Tribute Collection.

[nancydrewwouldnever]

Diego Rivera, Delfina Flores, 1927, oil/canvas (McNay Art Museum, San Antonio)

[meepxii]

week 1: introduction

Background

Her full name is Verónica Itzel Fontana Aguilar, she's a mexican-colombian girl. Her parents arrived at El Encanto when they were kids with the group of people in which Pedro and Alma were. Her father's family, the Fontanas, are horsemen from Sinaloa, and fled Mexico during the Porfiriato. Her mother is from Yucatan, and unfortunately, was orphaned shortly before arriving in town, and she and her younger sister were adopted by the Fontana family. They work raising horses and selling them. Their business is well established in the town, and they're one of the most important families in there. Anyways, they're not friends with the Madrigals, and only interact with them whenever they need something. Itzel is the eldest of two children in the Fontana-Aguilar family.

Despite having a normal childhood, Itzel was a lonely child. Her father worked all day in the stables, so he didn't spend time with her; her mother only worked until noon 'cause she's a teacher, but she just couldn't stand her own child, and sent her to her room to keep her away from her. Itzel was a restless and energetic girl, so this affected her a lot, making her look outside her family circle for the attention that she wasn't given at home.

Itzel's parents in their twenties.

Personality

Itzel is a kind person and has good feelings, but she's very disconnected from her own emotions and her environment, which makes her quite impulsive. Even so, the emotions Itzel feels are very intense, and is a hopeless romantic. She collapses easily, and crying is her way of channeling her anger, happiness, or sadness. She's also a theater kid, and tends to unconsciously create her own problems by believing herself to be the protagonist of her own soap opera/novela. She really likes to grab the spotlight, and knows she's pretty, so she takes advantage of this to get what she wants. Sometimes this attitude of hers gets her into trouble.

Her savior complex and her lack of judgment when in love always make her get into toxic relationships.

Her theme song:

Occupation

Since she was a child, Itzel showed special interest in art and knew she definitely wanted to be an artist. When she expressed her desire of devoting her life to art, her parents objected, arguing that a woman couldn't choose that occupation. However, they didn't stop her either, she did what she wanted, and fulfilled her dream anyway. She is the town muralist, and makes oil paintings as well. Her parents began to support her when they saw that she could actually make a living from it.

Outfits

Age progression

i'm super late for week one 😭 i had to fix some things on her character sheet, but here she is!

@encanto-extended-edition

[idk-tbh-idk]

This is day 10 for @ride-the-cyclober

Scary/weird Halloween Jane doe

The first one is an ode to the Mexican muralist José Guadalupe Posada, creator of La Catrina

And the last one is kinda disturbing ngl, basically if Jane decided to replace her head with the choir’s(they don’t think she’s quite silly)

[the-cricket-chirps]

José Clemente Orozco

Gods of the Modern World (From The Epic of American Civilization mural)

1932–1934

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Honoré Sharrer, Workers and Paintings, 1943. Oil on board. Click/tap to enlarge.

Sharrer worked downtown, near Manhattan’s Union Square, but shared with her Harlem peers a desire to celebrate “ordinary people.” “It is these distinguished-undistinguished players,” she said, “that moved and interested me.” Sharrer depicts American families presenting and reacting to well-known paintings, including Grant Wood’s iconic American Gothic (1930) and Pablo Picasso’s Girl before a Mirror (1932). In different ways, most of the artists she chose to represent here—including the French realist Jean-François Millet and the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera—were known for their sympathetic portrayals of working people. … Many decades later, the poet John Ashbery praised her paintings, describing their meticulous style as "a collaboration between Norman Rockwell and the brothers van Eyck." (MoMA)

The insight and modernity of “Workers and Paintings”—not to mention the meta nature—are startling. Throughout Western history, visual art has often been the domain of the educated or moneyed elite. Even when artists like Gustave Courbet broke new ground by depicting working-class people, the art itself still wasn’t meant for them. With her imagination and a careful brush, Ms. Sharrer casts aside thousands of years of tradition and poses a question: what if great art were more accessible to ordinary people? What if we could not only look at it in passing, but spend time or even live with it? With the painting hanging at MoMA, the challenge expands: what if museums weren’t intimidating and costly but more welcoming and inclusive? (Jillian Steinhauer in the NY Times)

Photo: NY Times