Armando García Nuñez (1883 – 1966) Armando García  Nuñez was a landscape and portrait artist of the classical Mexican school, nevertheless, he considered himself an impressionist. García  Nuñez studied at the Academy of San Carlos where he  was a disciple of German Gedoviuis. In 1991 he made his first exhibition, which was attended by Francisco León de la Barca, president of Mexico, who granted him a pension to study in Spain. While in Spain García  Nuñez worked at the Museo del Prado where he painted copies of the great Spanish masters. La Academia de San Carlos and the Museo Nacional de Arte have paintings by García  Nuñez in their collection.

Born in Jimenez, Chihuahua, in 1942, Benjamín Domínguez, who presently resides in Mexico City, has lectured in Mexico’s most distinguished art schools and museums such as: The Rufino Tamayo Museum, The Cultural Center of Chihuahua, The Cultural Center for the Ministry of Finance of Mexico, the National School for the Visual Arts in Mexico City, among others. He has exhibited in important museums and galleries in Mexico, as well as in Europe, Japan and the United States.

Benjamín Domínguez’s approach to his subject matter covers a wide gamut of techniques: the bold use of color and simplicity in art, naive art, the classical preoccupation with detail, and re-interpretation of the Flemish school of art. Famous for painting works that possess qualities of “more than meets the eye”, Dominguez’s hidden symbolism often sublimely depicts a dark side that can easily go unrecognized.

Domínguez is famous for his use of original Renaissance painting techniques, which he combines with contemporary culture and art history. He creates a fascinating and startling concoction of lavish gold repoussé and luxurious fabrics contrasted with our current world of tattoos, motorcycles, myth, and magic. 

Art in Embassies, US Department of State.

In 1985 Benjamín Domínguez painted 20 variations of the masterpiece by  Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck “The Arnolfini Portrait” painted in 1434. This piece is part of the collection of the “National Gallery” in London.

Benjamín Domínguez undertook the enormous challenge of replicating Van Eyck’s oil techniques used almost 600 years ago.

These variations bring the couple made up of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami to modernity, around various daily situations such as fights, violence, hatred, sex, eroticism, and love.

Some of these 20 works of art have been exhibited at the Aguascalientes Museum and the Luis Nishizawa Room of the National School of Plastic Arts.

“It happens inside a room where a couple is getting married. The 20 paintings that I painted begin when the man and the woman begin to love each other, to hate each other, to destroy each other inside that bedroom in an obsessive plot formed by the infinity of symbols that surround them”

Only the first two pieces below are part of my collection and have never been exhibited to the public. 

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The Arnolfini Potrait

Arnolfini Portrait by Flemish painter Jan van eyck, which is part of the National Gallery collection in London, is not only a universal masterpiece but also one of the most analyzed paintings of the centuries. At first glance, this work represents a double portrait. However, it should be mentioned that this painting is full of messages and symbolism that have been the subject of discussion and controversy.

Absolutely all the elements have one or several meanings, however, one of the most intriguing points is the fact that this painting is also considered a notarized document, which attests to the nuptial ceremonies of Giovanni di Nicolao de Arnolfini and his wife Constanza Trenta.

It is worth mentioning that in the XV century, it was not necessary for women to wear white, nor the presence of a priest to marry. A wedding ceremony required nothing but the will of both parties.

When observing the painting, one can appreciate a convex circular mirror at the back of the room, and in the reflection of it one can appreciate two silhouettes that probably would have been of the painter and some companion. The fact that the wedding has been witnessed by two people gives the ceremony unquestionable.

Apart from the testimonial presence of the companions reflected in the mirror, this work acquires an even stronger notarial value due to the fact that the painter has signed “Johannes van eyck fuit hic” which is Latin for Johannes van eyck, he was here, same as It is openly inscribed in full view above the mirror, in the center of the painting, and not at the bottom of the mirror, where it is customary to sign.

From this one can conclude that this painting is not only a masterpiece but also a notarized document.

Feliciano Peña (1915-1982) Feliciano Peña became famous for his landscapes, portraits and still lives. He held a collective exhibition with Frida Kahlo, Alfredo Zalce, Juan Soriano, Juan O’Gorman and Carlos Mérida. Likewise, for the inauguration of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana, Feliciano Peña exhibited his work individually. A room in the Guanajuato History Museum bears his name in honor of his artistic career.

Carlos Rivera was a landscape painter, portraitist and draftsman from Veracruz. In 1868, at the age of twelve, Carlos Rivera entered the old Academy of San Carlos, where with Cleofás Almanza, he was instructed in landscaping by Jose María Velasco and in portraiture by Peregrin Clave. Rivera specialized in painting open spaces and Biblical painting. The most complete collection of Ribera’s paintings is in the Museo de Arte Veracruzano in the city of Xalapa, although there are also pieces of him in the Museo Nacional de Arte and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. 

Luis Nishizawa (1918-2014) Luis Nishizawa is a  Mexican artist  with a Japanese father. Luis Nishizawa is recognized as one of the great Mexican landscape painters of the 20th century. He began his studies in 1942 at the San Carlos Academy where he worked as an assistant to Chavez Morado and Alfredo Zalce. His work covers a vast variety of techniques such as painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture and muralism. Nishizawa is also known as a writer and promoter of culture in Mexico. In 1996 he was awarded the National Prize for Sciences and Arts in the category of Fine Arts. In 1992 the house-studio where he lived became a workshop/museum that bears his name as a tribute to his vast artistic creation and career. 

Ramiro Martínez Plasencia (1963-) Ramiro Martínez Plasencia studied architecture at the Faculty of Architecture at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, and later studied visual arts at the San Carlos Academy of the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) in Mexico City. He has had 14 solo shows and multiple group shows. He has received various distinctions, among which the 1st prize in the Salón de Noviembre de Arte A.C. (2001 and 2006), 2nd place in the Bernardo Elosua Award, Arte A.C. (2005) and honorable mentions at the III Monterrey Femsa Biennial (1997), the Diego Rivera Biennial (1996) and the Johnny Walker Contest (1997) at the Museum of Modern Art.

​Former student of the Academy of San Carlos, Telesforo Herrera, is characterized by his broad themes. Among his works we can find everything from landscapes and portraits to natures, still lifes and erotic nudes. Likewise, Herrera was obsessed with apocalyptic themes such as death and misery. Telesforo’s work was influenced by the muralist Jose Clemente Orozco. “I consider myself the heir of “Orozquiana” painting, not Diego, not Siqueiros… Orozco is the painter of tragedy and I move within that line”

One can find both easel works and Murals by Telesforo Herrera at the Fonda Hipocampo in Mexico City.

Julio Ruelas (1870-1907) The work of Julio Ruelas can be divided into two facets. The first is as an academic cartoonist and the second as an illustrator with surreal nuances. Being better known for the latter. One of the most recurring themes in the work of Julio Ruelas are the internal conflicts of the human being such as religiosity, sexuality and death. He studied at the San Carlos Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico and the Karlsruhe Academy in Germany. Ruelas was one of the first illustrators of the “Modern Magazine” where he served as an illustrator for poets of the stature of Amado Nervo. He died in Paris and was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery. 

Juan Soriano (1920-2006) Sculptor and painter born in Guadalajara, Juan Soriano continually visited Chucho Reyes’ house at a very early age, where he met Luis Barragan and Roberto Montenegro. The Mexican Nobel Prize for Literature Octavio Paz dedicated an essay called “Los rostros de Juan Soriano” to his art, in which he describes it as a “fortunate fusion of the three powers of art: tradition. Fantasy and imagination”. Furthermore, Mexican intellectuals such as Elena Poniatowska and Carlos Monsiváis also wrote about Juan Soriano’s work. In 1993 he presented the monumental sculpture “La Luna” at the National Auditorium in Mexico City. In 1977 the Museo Nacional Centro de Artes Reina Sofía in Madrid presented a retrospective exhibition of his work.

uin Clausell (1866-1935)  Lawyer, political activist and painter, Joaquín Clausell is considered the pioneer of impressionism in Mexico. Joaquin Clausell was a representative of the opposition and a political prisoner during the Porfirio Díaz regime (1876-1910). Of self-taught artistic training, Clausell was amazed by impressionism when he attended an art exhibition in Paris in 1896. Likewise, his friend,  Gerardo Murillo “Dr Atl” encouraged him to follow his vocation as an artist. Joaquin Clausell frequently did not sign his works and gave them as gifts without accepting any form of payment  in return. Likewise, he made his own frames and painted on any surface he found, from wood and cardboard to walls. Much of his work is in the Museum of Mexico City where his study was once found. 

José Antonio Gómez Rosas was nicknamed “El Hotentote”. Name that corresponds to that of an African tribe of pygmies. Ironic suffix, since Gómez Rosas was a corpulent man of more than 1.90. Coming from a family of artisans, Gómez Rosas was a student and later a teacher at the School of Plastic Arts of the Academy of San Carlos. Those who knew him say that he was quite a character, and that he went down in history for organizing and decorating the Masquerade Balls of the San Carlos School of Plastic Arts in the middle of the last century. A frequent figure in the Mexican cultural scene of the mid-20th century, El Hotentote was a prolific artist since among his creations are: masks, costumes, curtains, murals, alebrijes and easel works.

Mexican graphic designer, painter and abstract sculptor of Catalan origin, Vicente Rojo (1932-2021) is considered one of the most influential personalities in the visual arts and design in Mexico at the end of the last century.

A member of the “rupture” generation in Mexican art, Vicente Rojo studied at the National School of Art, Painting and Sculpture “La Esmeralda” under the tutelage of Raúl Anguiano. In 1991, he was awarded the National Prize for Sciences and Arts, in the area of Fine Arts. Among his most notable public works is “Country of Volcanoes” in Plaza Juárez in Mexico City.

After the earthquake that shook Mexico City on September 19, 1985, several artists such as Francisco Toledo, Helen Escobedo, Martha Chapa and Vicente Rojo created numerous doll designs, of the most varied styles, colors and materials, to support the Union. of Seamstresses. The seamstresses, who had lost their jobs after the earthquake, made the dolls following the guidelines of the designs, to later sell them and survive. Without a doubt, this is an example that art and creativity is a source of release from pain and anguish. Some of these dolls have been exhibited in the Carrillo Gil Museum and Museo del Estanquillo in Mexico City.

  “I remember very well the relationship with the seamstresses, the pleasure, the excitement that seeing the projects gave them. I gave them some colored gouaches and they had the pleasure of finding the fabrics that would correspond to that color, to those images. That made me happy because the design was mine or the other artists’, but they put in the most moving part” Vicente Rojo.

Pedro Friedeberg (1936-       ) Pedro Friedeberg was a Mexican artist and designer who was born in Italy. His parents traveled  to Mexico from Europe before the outbreak of World War II. His work is full of lines, colors and ancient mystical-religious symbols. In 1956 he began to study architecture where he met Mathias Goeritz, who encouraged him to follow his passion for the arts. Friedeberg is related to Mexican surrealist artists such as Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Alice Rahon, and Gunther Gerzo.

Mexican surrealist painter born in 1940 and died in 2019.

Painter from Puebla, considered one of the first Mexican painters, a specialist in war reproductions, he is known for his reproductions of the famous Battle of Cinco de Mayo, which took place in his hometown of Puebla in 1862. His paintings are found in Museums of the likes of Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City and the History Museum in Monterrey, Nuevo León.

What is particularly important about these reproductions is the fact that Patricio Ramos, being a painter by profession, defended his homeland against the invading French army as a soldier, joining the cause. “Every young person or adult who can hold a weapon, and who can help fight the invader, must join the fight… I am going to paint a picture of the battle and the glorious episode where I found myself together with my companions to manifest the truth of the heroic deeds, where I will be and you will see me and all my true and good compatriots will see me dressed as a civilian with my coffee-colored flus, my talin, my cartridge belt and my rifle without bayonet, fighting and defending the honor and the right of my Country » “Patricio Ramos and Ortega. Description of the battle won against the French Army on the Guadalupe hill in Puebla on Monday, May 5, 1862.”

 Furthermore, the middle painting is considered the most important historical document of said battle, since it details on the canvas the positions of the troops in combat and where you can read in handwriting:

 “Having participated, I was an eyewitness of the battle that took place on Monday, May 5, 1862.”

For more information, click on any of the three images above. 

Alice Rahon was nationalized Mexican poet and artist who was born in Chencey-Buillon, Quingey, France in 1904.  At the age of thirteen, Alice suffered an accident that permanently marked her artistic life, since she had to spend long periods of rest and isolation with her body in a cast. Her restless character led her to practice writing and painting during her recovery. “Nature has made me live and survive. As a child, I spent three years in a cast from my neck to my ankles. To distract me, they would leave me in the garden for a long time. I learned to know the birds and the colors of the day”. Another unfortunate event that marked the life of the young Alice Rahon was the fact that she became pregnant, however, her son was born with a malformation and died shortly after being born.

In the 1930’s Alice Rahon became involved in her Parisian Bohemian circles, where she met the painter Wolfgang Paalen when she was 28 years old. In 1933 Wolfgang and Alice visited the Altamira caves in Spain, guided by the famous Catalan artist Joan Miró. The images on the stones of those caves shocked Rahon and influenced her artistic production.

Wolfgang and Alice were married at the Montparnasse civil registry. During their stay in Paris, the couple became associated with surrealist painters such as Marx Ernst, and Paul Edouard. Also during that time, Alice Rahon had a brief but very intense extramarital relationship with Pablo Picasso. Ella Alice let her husband know that she had been unfaithful and that she wanted to leave him. Paalen threatened to take her life, and Alice decided to end her relationship with Picasso.

In 1939, Alice met Frida Kahlo in Paris, when the Mexican painter was invited by Andre Brenton to exhibit her works. Alice identified with Frida since they both had common experiences and interests: their artistic sensibility, physical pain, and frustrated motherhood.

In 1940 Alice and Wolfgang traveled to Mexico City and settled as guests in the house studio of Frida and her husband, the also famous artist Diego Rivera. It is in Mexico where Alice Rahon began her pictorial career. Alice Rahon and her husband were amazed by the Mexican culture and the warmth of their people, however, they had the desire to return home, but the advance of the Second World War prevented them from returning to France.

In 1944 Alice Rahon had her first individual exhibition at the Galería de Arte Mexicano and a year later Alice had exhibitions in California, New York, Washington and Paris. By those dates, Alice Rahon had been related to Rufino Tamayo, Octavio Paz and Carlos Mérida. However, her closest relationship was with Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. The Mexican press and art critics of the time referred to the three as the muses of the Mexican surrealist movement.

At the end of the fifties, Rahon decided to pay tribute to Frida Kahlo, dedicating a painting titled: The Ballad of Frida Kahlo. This is her most renowned work.

National and international exhibitions of her continued throughout the decades of the forties, fifties and sixties.

In 1986 the National Institute of Fine Arts held a retrospective exhibition of the work of Alice Rahon. A year later Alice Rahon died in Mexico City. In 2009 the exhibition Alice Rahon, a surrealist in Mexico (1939-1987) was held at the Museum of Modern Art.