Juan Soriano (artist)

Juan Soriano (born August 18, 1920 in Guadalajara , Mexico , † February 10, 2006 in Mexico City ) was a Mexican painter , draftsman and sculptor .

The son of Rafael Rodríguez Soriano and Amalia Montoya Navarro was as Juan Francisco Rodríguez Montoya born and adopted as a child the name Soriano after a first name of his father.

life and work

At the age of 14, Soria participated as a child prodigy with a self-portrait and portraits of his sisters Rosa and Martha in an exhibition of the workshop Evolución in the Museum of Guadalajara .

1930s

A year later - in 1935 - his works were shown in a solo exhibition in Guadalajara before he followed his sister Martha to Mexico City . There he worked as a drawing teacher while attending an evening art class. In the following time he was politically involved in the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists (LEAR; Spanish: Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios ) and took part in their exhibitions, through which he got in contact with art galleries and the local cultural scene, including Rafael Solana, Frida Kahlo and other members of the journal Contemporáneos . As a stage painter , he worked on plays by Maurice Maeterlinck and George Bernard Shaw .

In 1938 he befriended the writer and later Nobel Prize winner for literature Octavio Paz ("The Labyrinth of Solitude"). After breaking with the LEAR, he traveled with Rafael Solana to the University of Berkeley ( USA ).

1940s

During the next few years he taught nude painting at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" , created ceramics in Francisco Zúñiga's workshop and worked as a stage painter and costume designer in a performance by Juan Ruiz de Alarcón's El tejedor de Segovia . In August 1941 his works were shown in the art exhibition of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México , whereupon Octavio Paz dedicated the Essey Rostros de Juan Soriano to him.

In the period from 1945 to 1947 he participated in several exhibitions in Philadelphia and New York , where he met Octavio Paz and Rufino Tamayo . For the first time, his works will also be shown in Mexico City. In an essay he is compared with artists such as Frida Kahlo, Agustín Lazo , Rufino Tamayo and Carlos Mérida .

1950s

1951–53 he met the Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta in Rome , in whose workshop he made terracotta and ceramics .

He processed the impressions of a trip to Crete in 1954 in the painting Apollo and the Muses . Octavio Paz dedicated another essay to him.

In 1956 a series of exhibitions of his works in Europe began in the Roman Galerie Schneider. He joined the newly founded theater group Poesía en voz alta as a stage painter and costume designer.

In 1957 he received the José Clemente Orozco Prize of the State of Jalisco . He worked with the theater company on works by Ionesco and TS Eliot and exhibited in 1958 at the Ruthermore Art Gallery in San Francisco .

In 1959 an exhibition was held in the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City to mark the 25th anniversary of his work as a painter. The University of Mexico magazine published his essay Abstract Painting .

1960s

In 1960 he created the set for a performance of Sophocles ' Elektra as part of the seventh program of Poesía en voz alta .

1961-62 he was appointed teacher of ceramics at the national design and handicraft school. He devoted himself to work on several portraits of Lupe Marín , who was also portrayed by Diego Rivera , and published a tribute to Picasso in the university newspaper . Octavio Paz wrote another essay, La exposición de Soriano .

In 1963, the Juan Soriano y el Teatro exhibition in the Casa del Lago cultural center of UNAM and the eighth Poesía program with works by Lope de Vega followed . He traveled to the Yucatan . He processed a car accident in the picture El accidente .

1970s

1969-75 he stayed in Rome for the second time. In 1975 he made engravings for Olivetti in the workshop of Bramsen and Colt . He made friends with Antonio Saura , Julio Cortázar , Milan Kundera and Valerio Adami and has been commuting between Paris and Mexico City since then .

In 1976 he received the special prize of the 8th International Festival of Painting in Cagnes-sur-Mer and from 1978-79 a grant to produce 30 large and 30 small-format pictures.

1980s

In 1980 he published a portfolio with 32 screen prints on texts by Sergio Pitol. Monterrey , Chihuahua and Mexico City showed retrospectives of his work.

50 years of artistic creation were celebrated in 1985 with an honorary exhibition that was shown in many cities in Mexico.

In 1987 he was awarded the national art prize and other honors. He created the monumental sculpture Toro for a park in Villahermosa ( Tabasco state ).

In 1989 he created other monumental sculptures such as Paloma ( dove ) for the MARCO museum in Monterrey, Ola for the World Trade Center in Guadalajara and El caracol ( the snail ) for the Amparo museum in Puebla .

1990s

On his 70th birthday, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City and the Instituto Cultural Cabañas in Jalisco honored him .

In 1993 the monumental sculpture Luna was created for Mexico City. The Colegio de Jalisco and the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio ( Texas ) exhibited his sculptures.

In 1994 he created the monumental sculpture Sirena for the Plaza Loreto in Mexico City. The exhibition Juan Soriano visto por once fotógrafos ( Juan Soriano, seen by eleven photographers ) will be shown in San Antonio , Dallas , Austin , Washington, DC and Chicago .

The exhibition Juan Soriano, 50 anos de obra grafica ( Juan Soriano, 50 years of graphic work ) was shown in various American cities from 1995 to 1996 . The monumental bronze sculptures Dafne and Mano were created for two buildings in Mexico City.

In 1997 the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid showed a large retrospective of his work from 1937 to 1997 with paintings, sculptures and graphic works.

2000s

To celebrate his 80th birthday in 2000, he designed 20 monumental sculptures for the Plaza de la Constitución in Mexico City and the two more than 6 m bronze sculptures Ofrenda l & II for the Expo 2000 in Hanover . The International Museum of Contemporary Art Rufino Tamayo organized an exhibition in his honor .

In 2001 six exhibitions took place in Mexico, the Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Iberoamericana in Miami exhibited his pictures and presented Orlando Gozález Esteva's book on Juan Soriano. Arturo Ripstein made a feature film about Soriano's life.

In 2002 a traveling exhibition of sculptures followed in Madrid , Budapest and Berlin .

In 2003 Soriano illustrated the books La Fuerza del Destino by Julieta Campos and El Aguila o Sole by Octavio Paz and created six sculptures for various Mexican states.

In 2004 he was appointed officer of the Legion of Honor . Five exhibitions take place in Mexico and the Juan Soriano y Marek Keller Foundation is established.

In 2005 there were several exhibitions at UNAM. The artist was awarded the Spanish Government's Velázquez Art Prize.

On February 10, 2006, Juan Soriano died of pneumonia in a hospital in Mexico City.

Soriano was the last survivor of the so-called "Mexican School", to which Frida Kahlo and the writer Octavio Paz , a close friend of Soriano, also belonged. As an artist, in whom he always saw a rebel, he combined realism with the abstract and tradition with the avant-garde.

literature

• Diana Briulo Destéfano: Juan Soriano. Pintor de antiguos y nuevos dilemas . Editorial Conaculta, Mexico 2002, ISBN 968-29-8928-0 .
• Orlando González Esteva: Enigma, old friend. The drawings of Juan Soriano . Ave del Paraíso, Madrid 2000, ISBN 84-88547-40-4 .
• Sergio Pitol: Juan Soriano. El perpetuo rebelde . Editorial Era, Mexico 1993, ISBN 968-29-5706-0 .
• Ute Schuffenhauer (Red.): Juan Soriano, Mexico. Painting, graphics, plastic . Center for Art Exhibitions of the GDR, Berlin 1984 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Art Gallery Gera, October 15 to November 11, 1984).

Web links

• Literature by and about Juan Soriano (artist) in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin
• Juan Soriano's website (Spanish)
• "Mexican sculptor Juan Soriano dies"