Painter Juan de Mata Pacheco was born in Aguascalientes on February 8, 1874. He began his art schooling at age 21 at the Academy of Fine Arts in San Carlos. He taught for a time and then studied painting in Europe, exhibiting in Madrid and Paris. While in Paris Pacheco studied art restoration with master Henrri Boissonas. He returned to Mexico to become curator of Galleries of Painting and Sculpture of Fine Arts. He was most interested and dedicated his life's work to restoration and preserving the history of Mexican art. Perhaps his most famous project was the reproduction of Juan Cordero's Triumph of Science and Industry Over Ignorance and Sloth, after it was ordered destroyed by then president Porfirio Diaz, who felt it threatened his oligarchy. (see May 14)
Most of his work hangs in the 19th Century Hall of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, but the Cordero reproduction along with two landscapes are exhibited in Mexico City at the National Museum of Art. Pacheco was killed in a car accident in 1956.
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