Luis Nishizawa (February 2, 1918 – September 29, 2014) was a Mexican artist known for his landscape work and murals, which often show Japanese and Mexican influence. He began formal training as an artist in 1942 at the height of the
Mexican muralism movement but studied other painting styles as well as
Japanese art. In addition to painting canvases and murals, including murals made with ceramics, he was a professor of fine arts at the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...
from which he received an honorary doctorate. The
State of Mexico, where he was born, created the
Museo Taller Luis Nishizawa to honor and promote his life's work.
Life
Luis Nishizawa Flores was born on February 2, 1918, at the San Mateo Ixtacalco Hacienda in the
Cuautitlán
Cuautitlán (), is a municipality in the State of Mexico, just north of the northern tip of the Federal District (Distrito Federal) within the Greater Mexico City urban area. The city of Cuautitlán is the municipal seat and makes up most of the ...
municipality of the State of Mexico.
His father, Kenji Nishizawa, was Japanese and his mother, María de Jesús Flores, was Mexican.
Since he was a child, he was introverted and solitary, spending his childhood tending cattle for his family.
The family moved to
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
in 1925, where Nishizawa learned to create jewelry and studied music with a teacher named Rodolfo Halfter.
![Funeral de Luis Nishizawa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Funeral_de_Luis_Nishizawa.jpg)
Although he had interest in art at age 15, he began artistic training at the
Academy of San Carlos in 1942, when he was 24, at the height of the
Mexican muralism movement.
He learned to paint landscapes as well as abstract art and graphics with an interest in the art tradition of Japan.
Either as teachers or working for them as assistants, Nishizawa had various mentors such as
José María Velasco,
Julio Castellanos,
José Chávez Morado
José Chávez Morado (4 January 1909 – 1 December 2002) was a Mexican artist who was associated with the Mexican muralism movement of the 20th century. His generation followed that of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqu ...
,
Alfredo Zalce and
Benjamin Correa .
Although nationalism was the prevailing sentiment in artistic production in the 1940s, he studied other movements such as
expressionism,
abstract art and
figurativism as well.
He received his master's degree in fine arts in 1947.
In 1955, he began teaching art at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas at UNAM.
In 1963, he studied engraving with
Yukio Fukazawa and took another course in engraving at the Center for Japanese Artists in Tokyo.
He married Eva Zepeda in 1964, with whom he had four children.
On Monday, September 29, 2014, Luis Nishizawa died in Toluca, México at age 96.
"El pintor mexicano Luis Nishizawa fallecie a los 96 años de edad"
ABC.es September 30, 2014
Career
Nishizawa was a painter, engraver, graphic artist, sketch artist and ceramicist. His techniques include drawing, watercolor and ink. Most of his works depict landscapes of the central highlands of Mexico such as the Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico w ...
, areas in Morelos, Guanajuato, Puebla and the State of Mexico . He is considered to have been one of Mexico's best landscape artists, known for his paintings of volcanoes. Some of his more important canvases include Paisaje: Valle de México (1947), Paisaje de Yagul (1976) and Pátzcuaro (1960) where the blending of this Mexican and Japanese heritage and training are evident. His works have been exhibited in the Museo de Arte Moderno
The Museo de Arte Moderno (Museum of Modern Art) is located in Chapultepec park, Mexico City, Mexico.
The museum is part of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura and provides exhibitions of national and international contemporary a ...
for over forty years, but most of his works can be found in the permanent collection of the Museo Taller Nishizawa. He created murals, paintings, drawings, ceramic and glass pieces and sculpture. His works can be found in the permanent collections of the Centro Cultural Mexiquense in Toluca, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Toluca, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura
The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL, en, National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature), located in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, is the Mexican institution in charge of coordinating artistic and cultural ...
, the Museo de la Estampa and the Museo Carrillo Gil, the Engraving Museum in Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
, the Culture Museum in Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...
, the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...
and the Shinanu Museum in Nagano Nagano may refer to:
Places
* Nagano Prefecture, a prefecture in Japan
** Nagano (city), the capital city of the same prefecture
*** Nagano 1998, the 1998 Winter Olympics
*** Nagano Olympic Stadium, a baseball stadium in Nagano
*** Nagano Universi ...
. His works are also held in private collections in Mexico, Japan and the United States.
He participated in numerous individual and collective exhibition in Mexico and abroad, with his first individual exhibition in 1951. Individual exhibitions include Pago en especie in Cancún
Cancún ( ), often Cancun in English (without the accent; or ) is a city in southeast Mexico on the northeast coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It is a significant tourist destination in Mexico and the seat ...
(a collection of paintings donated to the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público), Retrospective in the Gallery of the University of Colima, De Ayer y Hoy at the Teléfonos de México, The work of Nishizawa at the Ruth Hermose Galleries in San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
as well as various exhibitions at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana
Salón de la Plástica Mexicana (Hall of Mexican Fine Art; ''SPM'') is an institution dedicated to the promotion of Mexican contemporary art. It was established in 1949 to expand the Mexican art market. Its first location was in historic center o ...
and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, and “Las vacas flacas y los sueños rotos” in various locations and times. In 1995, the Casa de Cultura in Cancún held an exhibition to honor his life's work. The Institutto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literature sponsored an exhibition of his life's work at the Museo Nacional de San Carlos
The Museo Nacional de San Carlos ( en, National Museum of San Carlos) is a Mexican national art museum devoted to European art, located in the Cuauhtémoc borough in Mexico City. The museum is housed in the Palace of the Count of Buenavista, a n ...
in 2008.
Nishizawa painted his first major mural “El aire es vida y la salud es la mayor riqueza” at the Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, with another shortly after in 1969 at the Hospital General de Zona No. 4 in Celaya
Celaya (; ) is a city and its surrounding municipality in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, located in the southeast quadrant of the state. It is the third most populous city in the state, with a 2005 census population of 310,413. The municipality ...
, Guanajuato with the name of “El Nacimiento de la Vida” done with high fire ceramics. One of his important works is a ceramic mural done in a Keisei metro station in Japan in 1981. Other murals are found at the Centro Cultural Martí, the Centro Cultural Universitario, the General Archives of the State of Mexico in Toluca
Toluca , officially Toluca de Lerdo , is the state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca. With a population of 910,608 as of the 2020 census, Toluca is the fifth most populous city in Mexico. The city f ...
, the Procuraduría General de la República and the Secretaría de Educación Pública
The Mexican Secretariat of Public Education ( in Spanish ''Secretaría de Educación Pública'', ''SEP'') is a federal government authority with cabinet representation and the responsibility for overseeing the development and implementation of ...
. One of his most recent murals is “La Justicia,” which was created in the main stairwell of the Mexican Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation ( es, Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN) is the Mexican institution serving as the country's federal high court and the spearhead organisation for the judiciary of the Mexican Federal Gov ...
for the Bicentennial of Mexico's Independence in 2010 .
Artistry
Over his career Nishizawa employed various techniques and styles in his work, with some of his best known work being in ink. He is one of few painters who also draws as an end rather than just a means. Most of his work is dedicated to nature, the universe and the human figure, with much of the imagery influenced by his childhood contact with the landscape of Mexico. His Japanese and Mexican ethnic heritage is evident in his work, with themes mostly related to Mexico but Japanese style and technique evident, especially with the use of color.
Recognition
Nishizawa received recognition from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, as a judge for the Premio Universidad Nacional, receiving an honorary doctorate from the school in 1996 and named Master Emeritus (Maestro Emérito) as well. Related to the Mexican government he was named Creator Emeritus by CONACULTA
The Secretariat of Culture ( es, Secretaría de Cultura), formerly known as the National Council for Culture and Arts ( es, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes or CONACULTA), is a Mexican government agency in charge of the nation's museums ...
, received the Premio Nacional de Artes in 1996 and was commemorated with a Mexican postage stamp. He was honored various times by the State of Mexico, which created the Museo Taller Luis Nishizawa in an old mansion near the Palacio de Gobierno in Toluca.
Other honors include membership in the Academy of Arts of Mexico, various institutions named after him such as the Galería Luis Nishizawa at UNAM and the Centro Cultural Luis Nishizawa at the Campus Estado de México of ITESM, and received the Sacred Treasure of the Dragon award from the government of Japan.
Museo Taller Luis Nishizawa
The Museo Taller Luis Nishizawa was inaugurated in 1992 in a mansion from the end of the 18th century in Toluca, restored for its current purpose. It was created in recognition for his creative work as well as his work as an art professor. The institution functions as both a museum and workshop as well as center of documentation on the artist for researchers and the general public. The museum is located in a mansion from the end of the 18th century. It was restored for its current purpose and opened in 1992 by the State of Mexico. Its main function is to preserve and promote the works of the artist and contains about 800 works in various media. It has seven halls for temporary exhibits, a library and spaces for concerts, conferences and workshop in ceramics, engraving and drawing.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nishizawa, Luis
1918 births
2014 deaths
Mexican landscape painters
Mexican muralists
Artists from the State of Mexico
20th-century Mexican painters
Mexican male painters
21st-century Mexican painters
Mexican people of Japanese descent
People from Cuautitlán
National Autonomous University of Mexico faculty
20th-century Mexican male artists
21st-century Mexican male artists