Curiot is a street artist from Mexico renown for his work with imaginary creatures. Curiot’s government name is Favio Martinez. Curiot blends his creatures with symbols from his culture including the Day of the Dead.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
The artist is based out of Mexico City, Mexico.
In this clip we view the artist at work on many pieces:
I really enjoy the many subjects the artist puts into his work. A flower, a beast or creature, and the human figure are represented in many images. His work reminds of the Italian master Guiseppe Arcimboldo. Its amazing the diverse strokes the artist is able to paint with spray paint.
We close by taking a view the artist at work on a wonderful mural:
Fernanda Brunet was born in Mexico City, Mexico in the year 1964. Brunet works in a very unique style, painting realism but with a contemporary Pop twist.
The artist paints mainly in acrylics. Brunet is also a sculptor.
I enjoy the artist’s sense of design. The image of the zebra crossing water that looks like a tribute to Japanese Print Master Hirohige.
Pablo Vargas Lugo is a contemporary artist based out of Lima, Peru. Lugo makes paintings and also creates wonderful installations.
Pablo Vargas was born in Mexico City, Mexico in the year 1968. The artist attended the National School for the Fine Arts also located in Mexico City where he earned a B.F.A.
In this clip we watch as Pablo Vargas Lugo creates an installation:
Price range information: Sorry none available.
I enjoy the collages of this artist. These works have a great movement across the surface and also use patterns and shapes that repeat, two great themes in artwork of any kind.
The artist is also similar to Andy Warhol, both spent some time depicting disasters. Vargas Lugo did some works based on the extinction, or disaster of the disappearance of dinosaurs. Very creative and always looking to explore a new medium, a great contemporary artist.
Gunther Gerzso was born in Mexico City, Mexico in the year 1915. His father died shortly after he was born, his mother remarried a German, and the family moved to Europe and then back to Mexico. These were tough times especially economically and his mother sent her child to live in Switzerland with his uncle.
Gerzso’s uncle was well respected in the art world and Gerzso found his creative side whilst living with his uncle. Gerzso also became interested in theater and set design whilst in Switzerland. Economic times would find their way to Europe and the artist was sent back to Mexico to live with his mother. The artist kept sketching and creating in Mexico and became involved in the theater creating sets and even writing plays.
Gerzso was very successful in the theater world winning his country’s version of the Oscar award five times for his work.
The artist began to paint in the early 1930s.
Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his art.
Gunther Gerzso passed away in 2000.
Price range information: Works range from $1,000 to $100,000. Gerzso worked as a painter and sculptor.
Gerzso can be considered a very important artist as he contributed so much to different fields of study. A great painter and writer Gerzso was an artist’s artist!
Manuel Bravo was a photographer renown for his work with the people of Mexico and their everyday life. Manuel Bravo was born in Mexico City in the year 1902. For his artistic education Bravo attended the National School of Fine Arts located in Mexico City. Bravo enjoyed shooting the life of the peasant and middle income lifestyle. Even the working class heroes like fireman, were a great subject for Bravo. Bravo is considered by many critics to be the first photographer to put Mexico on the map for fine art photography.
The artist lived during the time of the Mexican Revolution and the rise of mural painters like Manuel Bravo. As a child it was not uncommon for him to come across dead bodies.
In this clip a brief montage of works from Bravo:
In the 1940s Bravo developed a technique using an extra wide lens to shoot the landscapes of Mexico. Bravo was shooting for a panoramic view, similar to the painter Rackstraw Downes. Below an example of Rackstraw Downes painting style. The artist makes several sketches from various horizon points and makes his own image converging these sketches.
He started work as a freelance photographer in the 1930s working for national magazines. For these works he would include photographs of murals by artists like Diego Rivera.
A collection of photographs by Manuel Bravo:
price range information: Works range from $2,000 to $50,000.
In the later years of his life his poor health forbade him from traveling, he then concentrating on photographing the nude.
Manuel Bravo passed away in 2002 at the age of 100.
Alfredo Ramos Martinez was a wonderful artist born in Monterrey, Mexico in the year 1871. Throughout his life he lived in Paris, France, Los Angeles, and Mexico city and was renown as a teacher and painter. Martinez had a style that blended modernism with the figure. His father was a merchant and he was the 9th child of the family.
price range information: The artist has broken the $4 million dollar mark at auction. Martinez worked in many mediums including watercolours and pastels which can be found for less than six figures.
When he was 14 years old he won a prize for the best portrait of the governor of Monterrey. The prize was a scholarship that allowed him to study at the Academy of Fine Arts located in Mexico City and the family soon relocated to allow him this opportunity.
As a student Martinez worked mainly in watercolours. He was able to sell many paintings as a student, but knew to fully succeed as an artist he would have to relocate to Europe. His family had money, but not enough for him to accomplish this dream. Fortunately the artist was lucky and was invited to a dinner for the president of Mexico and Phoebe Hearst. The artist made some works to showcase his talent to Hearst. Phoebe Hearst came from money and was the mother of William Hearst who would go on to be become chairman of the Hearst Publishing Empire. Phoebe loved his work, purchased some works, and agreed to pay for him to study abroad in Europe. Martinez took for Paris in 1900. He would receive $500 francs per month from the Hearst family.
In Europe he was able to see works by the Impressionists and the Dutch masters Van Gogh and Rembrandt.
Participated at the largest show at the time for artists, the Paris salon. He would go on win the gold medal. With this recognition the Hearst family quit paying him the $500 and he would start earning his way through life as an artist.
The artist did well in Paris but returned to Mexico when it was in turmoil throughout the country due to politics. The president resigned and eventually Alfredo Martinez would become director of the National Academy of Art.
The artist would eventually marry and have a daughter that had a disease that required the family to move from the climate of Mexico to Los Angeles, California.
Once in California he was collected by the elite of Hollywood from Albert Hitchcock to the legendary Jimmy Stewart.
Great selection of works by Alfredo Martinez set to music.
Felipe Castaneda is one of the most sought after artists in Mexico. Felipe Castaneda was born in the city of La Paloma, Michoacan in the year 1933. The area where the artist grew up has not only a deep Mexican history, but also includes a history of Columbia. The artist has a fantastic mix of european ideals and an abstract feel that makes his women seem very real and engrossed in deep thought. In 1958 Castaneda determined that he needed to live in Mexico City to get the experience and education he would need to succeed as an artist.
For his collegiate studies he attended La Esmeralda Painting and Sculpture Academy in 1958.
The artist finished school in 1963 and seven years would pass until he would have his first solo exhibition in 1970.
Castaneda works in many mediums including bronze, onxy, and marble.
If you like this artist make sure to check out the artist Francisco Zuniga. Zuniga was born in Mexico in 1912 and went on to become world renown for his sculptures of women. Below is a great example of his style.
One note I found very inspiring about the artist was in his artist’s statement. Castaneda considers it a miracle that actual human beings are created out of rock. I hope that you not only respect these artists that use traditional materials like bronze and wood, but I also hope to introduce you to other artists using mediums such as whalebone, antlers from the Inuit peoples of Canada, and even chewing gum (Maurizio Savini). The main thing to grasp from his statement is that ARTISTS CREATE MIRACLES!
Price range information: The artist has used many mediums including marble which range $5,000 to $60,000. The artist also has worked with alabaster but not enough sales to produce a pricing schedule. Bronzes range $4,000 to $60,000.
The artist was born on December 26 in Costa Rica in the year 1912. Zuniga studied the printmaking as well as drawing and painting at the School of Fine Arts in San Jose, Costa Rica. After this he went on to study sculpture and working with stone at La Esmeralda in Mexico City. He went on to teach at this institution until retirement in 1970. This institution is also known as the National School of Sculpture and Painting of Costa Rica.
His father ran a studio that produced sculptures for the local churches and convents around San Jose, Costa Rica. This is what got him excited about the world of sculture at a young age.
He worked with watercolor, pastels, crayons, charcoal, onyx, and marble. He mainly worked with the female figure.
Mexico City proved to be a grand destination for the artist. Due to its sheer size and amount of people good art and fantastic artists such as the muralists like Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros, and Jose Orozco. When Zuniga moved to Mexico he was able to work with the painter Manual Lozano.
A great clip showing a great deal of art made by Zuniga. You can get a good feeling as to how much the artist loved painting and sculpting the female figure. For his sculptures he used bronze or carved them in onyx.
Over his long career the artist finished many public commissions. From 1960 on he mainly worked in his studio producing prints and sculptures and very prolific pace. From an artistic standpoint Zuniga reminds me of Mary Cassatt and Elizabeth Catlett. Catlett was born in America but moved to Mexico and was very important in getting those workers in the fields to better themselves by learning to read. In order to show the emotional connection between the subjects in his paintings on many occasionally, Zuniga tends to exaggerate certain bodyparts like the arms and hands.
He seemed to specialize on painting the local women and seems to have used a stereotype in that nearly every women had arms far larger than normal. Maybe to emphasize their importance to the world and the idea that they were pouring all of their hard work in order to improve their community. I will go deeper into some Mexican muralists because they were very important in uniting the country for a certain cause. In a time before many people were even able to listen to radio, many people were able to view the originals murals or see a print that the artists had produced.
I also enjoy his design of his models on his working surfaces. In many works no horizon line exists and the subject seems very peaceful in their poses, very relaxed and seemingly floating in space. Rather than drawing a face in profile and twisting the body to get a Reubens like feeling, the artist many times worked with the entire figure in a three quarters position. Its great to see a different approach being used with the figure. I find his renderings of the eyes to be the most impressive part of his figure paintings.
The artist passed away in 1998.
Average price ranges: Charcoals from $3,000 to $10,000. Bronzes less than $1,000 up to $411,000. Marbles up to $75,000. Crayon works from $5,000 to $15,000. Lithographs from $1,000. Drawings from $5,000 to $15,000. Watercolor from $4,000 to $15,000.
Francisco Zuniga is part of museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City.
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