Your art history post for today, a work in the collection of the Henry Ransom Center on the University of Texas at Austin campus: by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), Untitled [Self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird], 1940, oil on canvas mounted to board, © 2020 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. #ArtHistory #mexicoart #womanartist #womenartists #painting #oilpainting #mexicanart #mexicanartist

From Phyllis Tuchman, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2002: ‘Biographies of the artist, which have been translated into many languages, read like the fantastical novels of Gabriel García Márquez as they trace the story of two painters who could not live with or without each other. (Taymor says she views her film version of Kahlo’s life as a “great, great love story.”) Married twice, divorced once and separated countless times, Kahlo and Rivera had numerous affairs, hobnobbed with Communists, capitalists and literati and managed to create some of the most compelling visual images of the 20th century. Filled with such luminaries as writer André Breton, sculptor Isamu Noguchi, playwright Clare Boothe Luce and exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, Kahlo’s life played out on a phantasmagorical canvas.’

For more from the article, see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/frida-kahlo-70745811/

By Mexican artist Jesús Guerrero Galván (1910-1973), “Niña con perico,” 1938, oil on canvas, 23½ x 19½ in. (60 x 50 cm.), sold at auction, Christie’s New York, in 2007 for $96,000. Alas, I couldn’t find a better resolution jpeg. #Art #hispanicart #mexicanart #MexicoArt

From Wikipedia: “Jesús Guerrero Galván… was a Mexican artist, a member of the Mexican muralism movement of the early 20th century. He began his career in Guadalajara but moved to Mexico City to work on mural projects in the 1930s for the Secretaría de Educación Pública and Comisión Federal de Electricidad In addition, he did easel paintings, with major exhibitions in the United States and Mexico. In 1943, he was an artist-in-residence for the University of New Mexico, painting the mural Union of the Americas Joined in Freedom, considered to be one of his major works. Guerrero Galván was accepted as a member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana…

Guerrero Galván was one of the most prolific figurative painters from 20th century Jalisco, part of the Mexican muralism movement… While best known for mural painting, the artist also worked on canvas, lithography and illustration, noted as a draughtsman and colorist… His important works include Fecundidad en el "Olimpo House", La unión de las Américas bajo la égida de la libertad, La niña, Juárez niño, El retrato de la señora de Macotela, El Sueño, La Danza de los venados, La Tierra and El génesis del Popol Vuh…

His style has been characterized as magical realism and poetic, with influences from Italian painting, Jalisco folk art and other aspects of Mexican culture.. Elements in his work include eye expressions indicating placidity in his figures, eyes gazing into infinity and the lack of emotion in the lips. Although he was political in his personal life and part of the muralism movement, his artwork did not have a political or social message. Recurring themes in his easel work is the reality of the Mexican child and a woman on her own with a child, depicting a woman as a mother above all. These are often on sparse settings and the children can seem to be in a kind of limbo…

He was also noted as a portrait painter, with many of his best featuring women and children.”