Cordelia Urueta

Happy Birthday Cordelia Urueta!

Born today, September 16, 1908, Cordelia Urueta was from Coyoacan. Related to famed David Siqueiros, her family was intellectual as well as artistic. Her father was an art critic. Cordelia became interested in drawing, portraits specifically, at a young age, and she worked with Dr. Atl for a time. She became an art teacher and came to know many in the "art circle". Urueta married fellow artist Gustavo Montoya.

Known for her use of color, abstract artist Urueta also has human references in her painting. It is reported that she felt color best expressed her emotions. Urueta was known as the "Grand Dame of Abstract Art". Her work was exhibited all over Mexico and abroad. I particularly love the freedom expressed in her carefree "Angels" below...

                                                               Angeles de la Noche

Carmen Parra

Happy Birthday Carmen Parra!

Mexican artist Carmen Parra was born in 1944, in Mexico City. Architect, Manuel Parra was her father. She studied anthropology at UNAM and used that theme in her painting. She has also studied in Rome ( painting) ,  graphic arts in London and music in Rio de Janeiro.  Parra is a painter but also works with amate paper (indigenous bark paper) and serigraphy. The themes and subjects of her art include angels, butterflies, eagles and other iconographic symbols. She has exhibited her work all over the world.

Carmen Parra co-founded the civic organization Monarca whose goal is to preserve the monarch butterfly. She has created artwork in many varied media (in addition to paintings, collaborative notebooks, sculptures, book illustrations, installations) to help support the effort.

a life dedicated to the Monarch...

James Pinto

Happy Birthday James Pinto!

Yugoslavian heritage, James Pinto was born in 1907. He came to Mexico to study mural painting in San Miguel at Escuela de Bellas Artes with David Siqueiros and Charlot. He was deported to the US for a time but was able to return and continue his work in Mexico. He helped found the Instituto Allende with a group of fellow artists and taught there for a number of years. James Pinto lived to be 80 years old. Most of his work is owned by the University of Guanajuato.

Joy Laville

Happy Birthday Joy Laville!

Joy Laville was actually born on September 8, 1923, on the Isle of Wight, England. Her father was a captain in the Indian army. After living in various places with her family and later with her first husband (Canada) she settled in Mexico, where she pursued art in earnest, as her career. She studied at Instituto Allende in San Miguel Allende, where she made her home.

Laville experimented with Cubism and Abstract Expressionism before developing her own style. She works in oils and acrylics but has also used pastels, worked in graphics, sculpture and painted ceramics. Her major influence has been Roger von Gunten. Her work to a dramatic turn after the death of her husband in an airplane crash. She abandoned painting for a time and when she resumed her colors and shapes became sharper, darker, focused on death and the curiosity of another realm.

Marcela Lobo Crenier

Happy Birthday Marcela Lobo Crenier!

The artist Marcela Lobo Crenier was born on September 12, 1959, in Mexico City. Her father is an architect and her mother a chef of French heritage. Marcela was encouraged to create crafts from an early age. She began her art training in etching, but soon switched to painting. She attended Universidad Motolina in Mexico City and studied art and design. Although she has since studied and worked with various artists in different media, Crenier credits her success primarily to her habitual painting for 8 hour each and every day.

She works in bright acrylic color, painting everyday objects...or in her words "costumbrista". She is also known for her painted ceramics with the Uriarte Talavera. She has had many exhibits of her work in the US, Europe and of course, Mexico.

Guillermo Meza

Happy Birthday Guillermo Meza!

Born on September 1, Guillermo Meza's father was of indigenous Tlaxcalteca heritage. He was interested in art early on but due to the family's lack of capital he was unable to attend an institution so instead copied Old Master's works and studied for a time with Santos Balmori (painting) and Francisco Diaz de Leon (engraving). He was also interested in music and played several instruments.

Meza worked in the Expressionist, Dadaist and Surrealist styles throughout his career. His paintings often addressed social issues and included fantastical background images with distorted human figures.  His themes were focused on myth, religion and fantasy. His figures are described as meditative, with the artist being influenced by the magic and fantasy of the indigenous people of his heritage rather than European.

Jesus Nicolas Cuellar

Happy Birthday Jesus Nicolas Cuellar!

September 10, 1927 was the birthday of Jesus Nicolas Cuellar Hernandez, in San Miguel de Allende, where he spent the whole of his life, in the same house! His mother was quite religious and he began sketching religious figures and icons as a young boy. After beginning his study of art at  Academy of San Carlos he left and completed his education at the Instituto Allende. He received a scholarship to study in New York at the Brooklyn Art Museum School and while in the US he also taught in Maine. After his time there he returned to Mexico in 1962.

Nicolas Cuellar was fascinated with magic and painted in the Surrealist style. He drew subjects and ideas from indigenous art. In addition to canvas paintings he also worked in jewelry and painted a few murals. He was a mentor in his hometown and the art community. Cuellar exhibited in Mexico and the US.