Enrique Echeverría
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Enrique Echeverría Vázquez (1923–1972) was a Mexican painter, part of the
Generación de la Ruptura Generación de la Ruptura (Breakaway Generation) is the name given by art critic Teresa del Conde to the generation of Mexican artists against the established Mexican School of Painting, more commonly called Mexican muralism post World War II. It ...
and early member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. He was one of a number of painters who broke away from the established painting figurative style in Mexico in the mid 20th century to experiment with abstractionism and other modern movements in painting from Europe. Although his career was followed by other artists and critics, he died in the early 1970s when painters of his generation were only beginning to receive widespread recognition for their work. While meriting two major exhibits at the
Palacio de Bellas Artes The Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) is a prominent cultural center in Mexico City. It has hosted notable events in music, dance, theatre, opera and literature in Mexico and has held important exhibitions of painting, sculpture and p ...
in
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
, one just after his death and a retrospective thirty years later in 2003, he and his work are not well known among younger Mexican painters.


Life

Echeverría Vázquez was born in Mexico City on July 14, 1923, to Marín Echeverría from
Navarre Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...
, Spain and Florentina Vázquez from
Apizaco, Tlaxcala Apizaco is a city in Apizaco Municipality located near the geographic center of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, approximately 25 minutes by car from the state's capital city of Tlaxcala. The city gets its name from the Nahuatl language words "ā ...
, Mexico. He initially began to work designing window displays for a pharmacy, studying
aeronautical engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: Aeronautics, aeronautical engineering and Astronautics, astronautical engineering. A ...
at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional. However, he left the school to pursue the arts. He then entered the
Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" La Esmeralda or Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (ENPEG) (English: National School of Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking) is a Mexican art school founded in 1927 and located in Mexico City. History The history of the ENPEG start ...
to study painting as well as the Escuela Superior de Ingeniería y Arquitectura de la
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 ...
to study
topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...
and
hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is calle ...
. Paul Westheim wrote that his interdisciplinary studies were a result of his lack of satisfaction with only one way to look at things. He thought of any found solution as only a step on a path. Later he studied with Spanish painter Arturo Souto and spent ten years experimenting various genres of painting under him. In 1952, he received a grant from the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica to travel for two spending most of his time in Spain and various European capitals. The trip initially piqued his interest in the works of Goya,
El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...
,
José Gutiérrez Solana José Romano Gutiérrez-Solana y Gutiérrez-Solana (28 February 1886, Madrid – 24 June 1945, Madrid) was a Spanish painter, engraver and author. He usually signed his paintings as "J. Solana". Generally, he is considered to be an Expression ...
,
Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
and
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
, but later it sparked interest in the semi-abstract work dominant in Paris in the 1950s. In 1957 he married Esther Sierra. He died on November 25, 1972, at the time when many painters of his generation were beginning to be recognized.


Career

Echeverría’s career spanned from 1940 until his death in 1972. He had over twenty five individual exhibitions in Mexico along with others in the Americas and Europe. The first of these was at the Galería Proteo in Mexico City in 1954. Later exhibits included Pan American Union Building in Washington in 1955, the Main Street Gallery in Chicago in 1957 and the Vieille Galerie in
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in 1958. In 1964 he exhibited at the Galería de Arte Mexicano, which was important in establishing him as an important painter in Mexico. He also participated in collective exhibitions in France,
Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
and
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. In 1961, he participated in the biennale events of
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
and
São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
and again in São Paulo in 1962. During much of his career, painters associated with the
Generación de la Ruptura Generación de la Ruptura (Breakaway Generation) is the name given by art critic Teresa del Conde to the generation of Mexican artists against the established Mexican School of Painting, more commonly called Mexican muralism post World War II. It ...
were effectively barred from exhibiting in many state sponsored institutions such as the Palacio de Bellas Artes. One effort by younger artists of the time was the establishment of the Galería Prisse in 1952. Echeverría was cofounder along with
Vlady Vladi or Vlady may refer to the following people: * Vlady Kibalchich Rusakov (1920–2005), Russian-Mexican painter * Vlady (musician), an Argentine musician and film score composer of the 1950s * Vladi Vargas (born 1971), Swedish music producer * ...
,
Alberto Gironella Alberto Gironella (26 September 1929 – 2 August 1999) was a self-taught Mexican painter born in Mexico City. Heavily influenced by the politics and artist in Mexico, he showcased his works in Brazil, United States, Spain, France, Japan, Swe ...
, José Bartolí,
Héctor Xavier Héctor Xavier (1921 – July 3, 1994) was one of Mexico's most important sketch artists of the 20th century. Part of the Generación de la Ruptura, Xavier was one of the founders of the Prisse Gallery, which helped to break the hold that Mexican m ...
and José Luis Cuevas, with the aim of breaking the hold that those of the established Mexican School of Painting had on the art market in Mexico. He illustrated the book El perro y la sombra by
Augusto Roa Bastos Augusto Roa Bastos (13 June 1917 – 26 April 2005) was a Paraguayan novelist and short story writer. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor. ...
. He received a
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
in 1957. He was a guest lecturer at
Notre Dame University The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campus ...
in Indiana in 1966 and later gave classes at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1972. Recognition of his work included acceptance into the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana in 1954, and a work called “Oc” accepted by the institution as winner of its Acquisition Prize in 1968. However he died at a time when those of his generation were just beginning to receive widespread recognition. The Palacio de Bellas Artes held an exhibition in his honor in 1973 shortly after his death, and held another retrospective of his work thirty years later in 2003.


Artistry

Echeverría established his career at a time when there as a struggle between the older figurative artists of the Mexican School of Painting and the more abstract work of the following generation. His work is considered to show much of this transition over his career. For this reason his work was considered important by contemporary artists and art critics during his life, followed by
Raquel Tibol Raquel or Racquel is a variation of the given name Rachel. Notable people with the name include: Raquel *Raquel (wrestler), Brazilian professional wrestler *Raquel Alessi (born 1983), American former actress and model *Raquel Naa Ayorkor Ammah (b ...
,
Margarita Nelken Margarita Nelken (5 July 1894– 5 March 1968) was a Spanish feminist and writer. She was a well known intellectual and a central figure in the earliest Spanish women's movement in the 1930s. Early life and education Nelken was born María Ter ...
and Pablo Fernandez Marqués . He is best known for his oil work but also created drawings and watercolors. Despite his prominence during his career in the mid to latter 20th century, he is not well known among younger generations of Mexican artists. In its retrospective called Tiempo Suspendido in 2003, the Palacio de Bellas Artes divided Echeverría’s work into four phases. His earliest work is associated with his formation as an artists, especially under Arturo Souto. This and his father’s Basque background resulted in strong influence from Spanish painting, especially landscapes. He felt he owed much to Spanish painting such as that by Velázquez, El Greco, Goya, Gutiérrez Solana and Picasso during a phase where his work was strongly influence by Impressionism. Important works from this time include portraits of his mother and one of
Pío Baroja Pío Baroja y Nessi (28 December 1872 – 30 October 1956) was a Spanish writer, one of the key novelists of the Generation of '98. He was a member of an illustrious family. His brother Ricardo was a painter, writer and engraver, and his nephew ...
. The next phase shows the beginning of his transition from figurative to abstract work, with also include elements of
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
. It also shows him moving away from Spanish styles to include elements of French painting, including influence from painter Nicolas de Staël. Important works from this time include ''Maternidad'', ''Guitarra para Ester'' and ''Niños bajo el Puente''. By the end of the 1950s he was interested in all of the then current movements in art, especially abstractionism, as he felt that figurative work carried too much risk of propagandizing. In 1959 he wrote that he had left realism little by little to express more of vibration, color, space, time and speed. In the early 1960s he went to New York and worked more with the spatula than the brush using rich colors such as ''Sin Titulo (Cabeza)'' from 1961. It was a type of still life but the focus was more on light, shadow, solidness and color than on form. His last works reincorporate figurative elements, which he never left completely behind. These post abstract works focus on floral and other natural motifs with emphasis on color. Works from this time include ''Ofrendas'' and ''Reminiscencias del Paisaje''. These works are also more introspective and include ''Umbral'', created shortly before his death.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Echeverria, Enrique 20th-century Mexican painters Mexican male painters 1923 births 1972 deaths Painters from Mexico City Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" alumni 20th-century Mexican male artists