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The processes that allowed the consolidation of Mexican
art in the first half of the twentieth century are often
linked to what has been called the Escuela Mexicana
de Pintura (Mexican School of Painting), a term which
encompasses several political and ideological mo
vements, determined by the practice of artists who
assumed a militant approach to social issues. And yet,
other artists, like those grouped around the magazine
Contemporáneos, created more intimate and introspec
tive works, which found an audience when the Galería de
Arte Mexicano was founded in 1935.
In this context reproductions of Surrealist works by
artists such as Joan Miró, Man Ray and Giorgio de
Chirico appeared in local periodicals, paving the way for
the arrival of such personalities as Wolfgang Paalen,
César Moro, Leonora Carrington, and Remedios Varo, all
of whom were pivotal to the International Surrealist Ex
position that Paalen, Moro, and Breton organized in
1940, and which blazed a trail for the consolidation of the
relationship between Surrealism and Mexican art.
In the mid 1930s, Raúl Anguiano’s artistic practice
focused on murals, prints, and a variety of works produced
in the
lear
and the
tgp
, spaces that brought together
artists of different origins and tendencies. Nonetheless, it
has not been widely known that one of our most important
creators produced a significant series of works during the
1934-1942 period, which relate to Surrealism and other
forms of European modernism, and which are assessed in
these pages by art historian James Oles.
The exhibition Raúl Anguiano: Two Realities, 1934-
1942 presents experimental works by this artist from
Jalisco, which might be seen as an exercise motivated by
dreams and fantasies. Evidently, a project of this nature
and scope, driving forward a crucial facet in the disciplined
draughtsman’s career, would not have been possible
without the valuable contribution of Brigita Anguiano.
Miguel Fernández Félix
Director / National Museum of Art /
inba