It’s a shame that we in the “West” are so familiar with the paragons of American and European art but so often overlook the greats of other cultures. Case in point: How many famous artists from Mexico can you name?
In this article, let’s restore some credit to one of the world’s largest countries and, if you’re American, your southern neighbor. Let’s discuss Mexican art, what it says about the importance of arts in modern culture, and the challenges of studying art in general. If you appreciate the arts, keep reading to discover how to become a more worldly critic.
What We Mean By “Mexican Artists”
Before we dive into some of the best Mexican artists, we’ll remind readers that “Mexico” is not the same thing as Central America nor Latin America. It’s a country. Not only that, it’s a relatively new country; “Mexico” as we know it only achieved independence from Spain in 1821.
Whenever you buy college paper histories of Mexico, they’ll treat it as a modern nation that grew out of, but is not synonymous with, ancient Mesoamerica or the Aztec Empire. In that vein, we’re offering such due respect. In this list, all of these artists call (or called) modern Mexico home.
Frida Kahlo: Mexican Art’s Most Iconic Face
We’re starting off with a “freebie” – that is, an artist you’re probably already familiar with. Frida Kahlo has become iconic in Mexican culture for her personal tragedies, which feature heavily in her art; her tortured relationship with Diego Rivera (also on this list); and her authentic and often surreal explorations of indigeneity, feminism, and gender nonconformity through striking portraiture.
Kahlo’s most important contributions to Mexican artwork include her prolific catalogue of self-portraits. While the woman herself is always instantly recognizable – unibrowed, dark-haired, part-indigenous – she constantly depicted herself in different lights. Sometimes androgynous, sometimes in feminine dress, sometimes otherworldly or surrounded by animals, Kahlo proved that just one face is fertile ground for infinite exploration.
While Kahlo is popular outside of Mexico, the country itself considers her work part of its national heritage. It is illegal to export Kahlo paintings from Mexico, meaning those already outside are especially valuable, while those within are treasured only more dearly.
Diego Rivera: Mexico’s Most Famous Muralist
Ok, ok, here’s one more freebie. It would be unfair to start this list with Frida Kahlo and not follow up with her husband: the most famous Mexican painter (excepting, perhaps, Kahlo herself), and one of the leading lights of Mexico’s mural movement in the early twentieth century, Diego Rivera.
When art lovers in the United States think of Mexican famous people, Rivera probably comes to mind thanks to the fact that his work is featured extensively in New York City, Detroit, and San Francisco. Rivera’s murals feature colorful, often Cubist depictions of farmers, industrial laborers, and other “common” constituents inherent to the concept of a united Mexican “people.”
Rivera’s vast, vibrant projects have become emblematic of Mexican pride and heritage. Look no further than the ambitious The History of Mexico, which immortalizes a seamless narrative of Mexican origins, from antiquity to the present, around an enormous stairwell in the National Palace itself.
Alfonso “Piloto” Nieves Ruiz: Modern Artist, Modern Activist
Now here’s one you may not know. While not living within Mexico itself, “Piloto” is among the most innovative, famous sculptors on the contemporary scene. As a former undocumented immigrant from Central Mexico, he uses clay and other people’s refuse to create powerful images symbolic of perseverance, resourcefulness, and other watchwords of underserved communities like his own.
Mirroring his own upbringing, Piloto’s art has ventured outside of Mexico’s borders and reached the likes of Chicago, Havana, and Torino, Italy. His work even features in his Evanston restaurant, Zentli, with whose two owners he’s teamed up to serves authentic Mexican cuisine underneath surreal blue skulls and magical orange hues.
Piloto also continually proves that art is a front for activism. His traveling exhibits have honored the victims of Mexico’s infamous Iguala abduction as well as environmental activists in Latin America, advancing the idea that cultural resiliency can help fight climate change.
José Clemente Orozco: A Critic of the Revolution
It’s proof of his genius that Orozco, who lost his left hand in a gunpowder accident, still established himself as, along with Rivera and David Alfaro Siquieros, one of the “Big Three” of the Mexican mural movement.
As such, Orozco painted much of the same subject matter as the other two, so universal in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, but with his own dark interpretation of its violence. Whereas Rivera glorified the Revolution, which (to oversimplify severely) saw Mexico emerge from the dictatorship of Porfirio Dîaz and assume its modern, centralized, republican form, Orozco focused on its tragic nature and civilian sacrifices. Instead of victors, Orozco’s painted subjects are pawns of bourgeois interests. Instead of insisting upon the Revolution’s moral clarity, Orozco questioned whether its combatants even understood its virtues.
While less overtly patriotic, then, Orozco’s work remains critical for its honesty, courage, and willingness to add dark complexity to Mexico’s national history.
David Alfaro Siquieros: Radical, Bold, and a Public Servant
Rounding out the “Big Three” of the Mexican mural movement, Siquieros was politically active both outside of and with respect to his artistic contributions. Given that he was a communist who fought Francoists in the Spanish Civil War and tried to assassinate ex-Soviet leader Leon Trotsky in Mexico City, it shouldn’t be surprising that Siquieros used his art to promote revolutionary, Marxist ideology.
Across enormous murals full of bold colors and innovative techniques, Siquieros painted scenes of working-class struggle, liberation, indigenous resistance against invaders, and other anti-colonial, anti-bourgeois stories. Like in Rivera’s art, the Mexican Revolution is as glorified as it is supposed to be inspirational. Consistent with such beliefs, Siquieros chose murals because he saw art as a public good, educational in purpose and necessarily accessible to the proletariat masses. In his own (translated) words, emblematic of his dedication to social realism, “I don’t want people to speculate what I mean, I want them to understand.”
Rufino Tamayo: “The True Essence of Mexicanness”
Rather than lean upon kaleidoscopic vibrancy, Tamayo made his works powerful by using color with restraint and intentionality. A tour de force of Mexico’s mid-century modernist movement, he was not just influenced by the Cubist and Surrealist contributions of his predecessors, but he also sought to show, through traditions and indigenous tributes, his affection for Mexican culture, or mexicanidad.
What sets Tamayo apart from other famous artists in Mexico, like many of the great muralists, was that he set out to separate Mexican identity from overtly political and nationalistic themes. While his art celebrated “Mexicanness,” it also carried the message that “[a]rt, like culture, is international…the result of many parts to which we add our own tone.” In this vein, he discarded the “Mexicanness of anecdote,” which depicted Mexico via its history and events, in favor of a “true essence of Mexicanness,” which emphasized materials, forms, and the uniqueness of Mexico’s racial and cultural composition.
Octavio Medellín: The Elegance of Simple Sculpture
Octavio Medellín spent much of his life dividing time between Mexico, his birthplace and continual source of inspiration, and Texas, where his family fled to escape the violence of the Mexican Revolution, and where he taught after studying at the San Antonio School of Art.
Like Rufino Tamayo, Medellín considered his art to be apolitical and “toward the common people and everyday life.” Unlike Tamayo, he primarily expressed those values through sculpture: “Stone is beautiful in itself and does not admit of any tricks.” Working with limestone, sandstone, terra cotta, wood, and other mediums, Medellín was influenced heavily by the ruins of Mexico’s indigenous societies, especially Mayan and Toltec, that he saw while traveling through Mexico as a young man. Despite this, he also (again, like Tamayo) embraced the idea that Mexican art could spread his universalistic belief that “the art [is] the people…People to me are all the same.”
José Guadalupe Posada: The Velvet Underground of Mexican Art
In several ways, Joseé Guadalupe Posada is somewhat of an outlier on this list. He lived earlier than the other artists here, primarily in the nineteenth century. He didn’t spend considerable time abroad, studying at U.S. universities and developing exhibitions in New York and Chicago. Oh, and he wasn’t a painter or a sculptor, but instead a lithographer; his main creations were political cartoons and calaveras, or artistic depictions of the human skull.
Posada is like the Velvet Underground of Mexican art: largely forgotten during his own life, but highly influential on other important artists. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were inspired by his prints, which conveyed strong political and satirical commentaries on Mexican society before and during the Revolution. His most famous calavera, La Calavera Catrina, is the enduring symbol of Mexico’s Day of the Dead. Even the Grateful Dead, and by extension Deadheads, have adopted Posada’s iconography.
María Izquierdo: Promoting Mexican Identity for All
As the first woman to receive a major mural commission from the Mexican government, María Izquierdo pushed boundaries both in life as well as art. Her work consisted of still lifes, portraits of women, and depictions of traditional Mexican motifs with a modern emphasis on female inclusion. Though once a student of Diego Rivera, Izquierdo was also mentored by (and perhaps a lover of) Rufino Tamayo, who paid tribute to her imaginative style in his own portrait of her.
In 1930, Izquierdo became the first Mexican woman to have her own art exhibition in the United States. Though feminity isn’t the only lens through which to appreciate her work, it still matters; Izquierdo consistently demonstrated that Mexican identity, and indeed Mexican nationalism, is not inherently masculine nor occupied solely by men. With her dreamlike compositions and tributes to indigenous styles, Izquierdo is remembered today as a distinguished artist and trailblazer.
Leonora Carrington: Exile, Convert, and Feminist Icon
Finally, we have Leonora Carrington, an English-born woman who had no Mexican heritage and did not even visit the country until she fled there in her twenties from war-torn Europe. You’re probably wondering: Why is she here?
We’ve included Carrington on this list because we think it’s worth celebrating that a European artist, primarily trained in England and France, developed such appreciation for Mexican art that she incorporated its styles and folklore into her work. Carrington’s distinct surrealism and solidarity with Mexican women – art historian Whitney Chadwick surmises that the two go together, interpreting surrealism itself as a glimpse of female liberation – add special significance to triumphs like El Mundo Mágico de Los Mayas, which is an explosive, dreamlike ode to Mayan mythologies.
So while she wasn’t “as Mexican” as the other native-born or indigenous artists on this list, Carrington’s art forces us to reflect upon the meaning of “Mexican art” in the first place.
In Summary
Imagine you’re assigned an essay about the world’s most important artists. Should you, our now well-informed paper writer, really get full credit for excluding a country like Mexico, which is one of the largest on Earth and, as we’ve shown, just full of amazing, talented people throughout history?
If there’s one lesson to take from this list, it’s that “Western” art can’t be the only recipient of any self-respecting student’s appreciation. The world is a big place with fascinating cultures and stories; limiting your worldview (literally) only prevents you from recognizing the scope of its greatness. So don’t do it!
What We Learn From Studying Mexican Art
On that note, we’re not discussing so many famous Mexican artists so that readers can polish their trivia skills. We’re doing it because studying different works of art is key to understanding other works of art – including, if you’re an artist, giving complexity to your own.
Art knows no international borders. Modern artists, just like with music, film, and any other medium, constantly cite their past influences, and the best of them will have many. When students turn to a literature review writing service in search of stronger essays, the writers they hire don’t just read Hemingway and think, “Ok, I’ll make it exactly like that.” They cast a wide net to ensure better quality.
So the next time you go to an art museum, don’t skip the “Third World” sections and go straight to the famous, crowd-covered Rembrandts. Take the time to pick your own favorites. Appreciate Mexican artists.
Why It’s Hard to Study Art in College
If you’ve already looked up the famous Mexican people listed above and wondered why you hadn’t heard of such beautiful artwork before, don’t blame yourself. Whether it’s Mexican drawings, Chinese porcelain, or even European sculpture, our society just doesn’t value the arts to the same extent as other fields.
Becoming an artist, or just studying art history, has enormous financial burdens. Many students refrain from pursuing the arts in college because its job prospects don’t justify the costs of the degree. We’re not here to argue against such challenges. However, we will reject the idea that art shouldn’t be studied because its monetary yield is insufficiently impressive. Think about how drab our culture would be without the vibrancy of paintings, films, photography, and so much more.
The arts bring meaning to our lives in ways that money just… can’t. Instead of discounting artists, do what you can to support them!
In Conclusion: Mexico, Meaning, and Imagery
Our list of Mexican artists isn’t comprehensive; it barely scratches the surface of famous Mexicans in general. But it’s a start. And that’s all it takes to create and appreciate art: a start. A willingness to find your own favorites, give unfamiliar names a few minutes of your time, and take them seriously.
All of the artists mentioned here explored Mexican identity, history, and culture in their work. Sometimes the way they did so was heroic, vibrant, and idealized. Sometimes it was dark, unvarnished, and critical of Mexican society and politics. Even after diving briefly into each one’s legacy, you’ll understand much more about a country that is too overlooked, if not viewed reductively, for its size, complexity, and proximity to the United States. If you consider yourself an open-minded person, one who can appreciate all walks of life, then make the effort to learn about Mexican art; you’ll be all the better for it.