Gabriel Fernández Ledesma

Gabriel Fernández Ledesma

'Terrible Disaster' (1928). Oil on canvas.
Born May 30, 1900(1900-05-30)[1]
Aguascalientes, Mexico[1]
Died August 26, 1983(1983-08-26) (aged 83)[1]
Mexico City, Mexico[1]
Nationality Mexican[1]
Field Painting

Gabriel Fernández Ledesma (30 May 1900 - 26 August 1983) was a Mexican painter, printmaker, sculptor, graphic artist, writer and teacher. He has been described as one of the most prolific artists in Mexican modern art.

Contents

Biography

Fernández Ledesma was a Mexican painter, printmaker, sculptor, graphic artist, writer and teacher. Born in 1900 into a large family of intellectuals in Aguascalientes,[2] he began his artistic training at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (National School of Fine Arts) in Mexico City after receiving a scholarship granted by the state.[1] Around 1920, José Vasconcelos commissioned Ledesma to create modern tile designs.[2] Ledesma chose to revive the Puebla Talavera tiles. He used his painted tiles for the former Colegio Máximo de San Pedro y San Pablo (Great College of Saints Peter and Paul). Together with Roberto Montenegro, Fernández Ledesma designed the mural paintings that decorated the walls of the Mexican Pavilion for the 1922 Centenary Exposition in Rio de Janeiro.[3] In 1925 he taught drawing at the Ministry of Public Education. He founded the free school of sculpture and direct carving and in 1926 the Centro de Arte Popular (Public Art Center) in the San Pablo district.[1] Fernández Ledesmas became the editor of Forma in 1926, a government-sponsored magazine about the plastic arts scene in the late 1920s.[1][2] He continued as editor for several years.[2] He was involved with the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 in Seville. From 1928 to 1929 he built up the "¡30-30!" movement which attempted to change the teaching of art together with Fernando Leal, Ramón Alva de la Canal and other revolutionary anti-academic artists.[1] He was a founding member of Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists) and with the support of the Ministry of Public Education, exhibited his colleagues´work in Paris in 1938 under the title Artdans la vie politique mexicaine (Art in the Political Life in Mexico).[1] In 1942 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for non-fiction.[4] Fernández Ledesma edited and published several books on Mexican popular art. He has been described as one of the most prolific artists in Mexican modern art.[1]

Fernández Ledesma married Isabel Villaseñor, an icon of Mexico's postrevolutionary period.[5] They had one daughter, Olinca.[2] Fernández Ledesma died in 1983 in Mexico City.

Publications

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Colección Andrés Blaisten - Gabriel Fernández Ledesma , 1900-1983" (in Spanish). museoblaisten. http://www.museoblaisten.com/v2008/artistDetailSpanish.asp?artistId=17. Retrieved 12 January 2010. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Stewart, Virginia (1951). 45 Contemporary Mexican Artists: A Twentieth-Century Renaissance. Stanford art series. Stanford University Press. OCLC 1390423. http://books.google.com/books?id=G4urAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Retrieved 2010-01-12. 
  3. ^ Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio (1996-10-03). "12. The 1922 Rio De Janeiro Fair". Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation. University of California Press. pp. 206. ISBN 978-0520202672. http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft2k4004k4;brand=eschol. Retrieved 2010-01-12. 
  4. ^ "Guggenheim Fellowship". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. http://www.gf.org/fellows/8539-gabriel-fernandez-ledesma. Retrieved 12 January 2010. 
  5. ^ "Woman of the Isthmus Combing Isabel Villaseñor's Hair". The J. Paul Getty Trust. http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=143337. Retrieved 12 January 2010. 

External links