The painter, Jose Luis Cuevas, was actually born on February 26, 1934, but since I have found three artists born on that date I will write about Cuevas today...He was born and raised above a paper and pencil factory owned by his grandfather, leading him to joke that because of that he was fascinated with paper and drawing at an early age. He has been credited as an early poineer aginst the Mexican Muralist movement and a member of Generación de la Ruptura.
Although he started his art education early, at age ten, at the National School of Painting and Sculpture "La Esmeralda", he had to stop when he contracted rheumatic fever. He became largely self taught and was focused on macabre scenes of amoral humanity, misery and distorted human figures, perhaps due to his illness and brush with death. He was considered quite vain and is said to have taken a photograph each day beginning in 1955 and still continues to this day!
Cuevas has won several awards, including being declared "honored guest" and receiving the city keys for Monterrey and Tijuana, Mexico. He established a museum for his own work in an historic monastery in the 1980's, the José Luis Cuevas Museum. He has lived and worked in Mexico City his entire life and plans to live to be one hundred!
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