Carlos Merida

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wall painting in the town hall ( palacio municipal ) of Chiapa de Corzo

Carlos Mérida (born December 2, 1891 in Guatemala City , † December 22, 1984 in Mexico City ) was a Guatemalan - Mexican painter , lithographer and well-known representative of muralism .

biography

Carlos Mérida's parents came from Quetzaltenango , where he initially grew up. In 1909 the family moved to Guatemala City, where he finished secondary school and initially studied music. He had to stop this course due to a hearing impairment caused by illness and turned to the performing arts by studying at the Instituto de Artes y Artesanias . He met the writer Jaime Sabartés and the painter Carlos Valenti , among others . With the latter he went to Paris in 1910 , where he also made the acquaintance of Pablo Picasso and from 1912 studied at the Académie Vitti with Kees van Dongen and Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa . His friend Valenti shot himself in Europe. Mérida himself returned to Guatemala in 1914, where he exhibited for the first time. In 1919 he married Dalila Gálvez against the wishes of her family, which was the reason for emigrating to Mexico.

In Mexico he dealt with Mexican wall painting . In the early 1920s he worked with Diego Rivera on the murals of the "Bolívar" amphitheater of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria . Like Amado de la Cueva , Ramón Alva Guadarrama , Xavier Guerrero , Fernando Leal , José Revueltas and Germán Cueto , he belonged to the Unión de Trabajadores Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores founded by David Alfaro Siqueiros with Diego Rivera . With the motif " Little Red Riding Hood and the Four Elements " he created his first own mural in 1923 in the children's library of the Secretaría de Educación Pública . When he went to Paris again from 1927 to 1929, he met Paul Klee and Joan Miró . On his return he became art director of the gallery at the Teatro Nacional de México . Influenced by the two artists, from then on he painted mostly figureless.

Later he used indigenous bark wood paper again and again in his paintings. In 1940 he took part in the International Surrealist Exhibition in Mexico. From 1942 he taught at North Texas State Teachers College in Denton , from which today's University of North Texas emerged . Towards the end of the 1940s he researched other art movements; as a result, murals and glass mosaic pictures with constructivist influence emerged, including in his home country Guatemala. Despite his hearing loss, Mérida remained connected to his love for music throughout his life and participated in the founding of the dance school of the Secretaría de Educación Pública, of which he was also director. In Guatemala City, the Museum of Modern Art has his name added to it.

Other well-known works (selection)

  • Mural on the " Benito Juárez " building, Mexico City (1952)
  • Mural on Alianza Insurance Building, Mexico City (1953)
  • Mural on the City Hall of Guatemala City (1956)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Merida, Carlos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Guatemalan-Mexican artist
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Guatemala City
DATE OF DEATH 22nd December 1984
Place of death Mexico city