Francisco Icaza (5 October 1930 – 3 May 2014) was a Mexican artist best known for his drawings about his travels and his oil paintings. He spent much of his life living in and visiting various countries around the world. He began painting as a child while living as a refugee in the Mexican embassy in Germany. Icaza exhibited his work both in Mexico and abroad in Europe, South America, the Middle East, Asia and India, most notably at his three major solo exhibitions at 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 ...

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 ...

. He also painted a mural dedicated to Bertolt Brecht, ''La Farándula'', at the

Casino de la Selva The Hotel Casino de la Selva (Jungle Casino Hotel) was a hotel and casino located in the city of Cuernavaca, Mexico. The main building was opened in 1931 as a hotel and casino, but from 1934 it was used only as a hotel. Additions in the late 1950 ...

Cuernavaca Cuernavaca (; nci-IPA, Cuauhnāhuac, kʷawˈnaːwak "near the woods", ) is the capital and largest city of the state of Morelos in Mexico. The city is located around a 90-minute drive south of Mexico City using the Federal Highway 95D. The na ...

, a focus of controversy when the work was moved and restored in the early 2000s. He painted additional murals for the Mexican Pavilion at the HemisFair in Texas (''Urban Flowers''); for the Mexican Pavilion at

Expo 67 The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...

in Montreal, Canada (''Canto al Barroco Maya''); and for the Mexican Pavilion in Osaka (''Repressive Computers'') at

Expo '70 The or Expo 70 was a world's fair held in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, Japan between March 15 and September 13, 1970. Its theme was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." In Japanese, Expo '70 is often referred to as . It was the first world's fair ...

. This last mural is held at the Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguérez in

Zacatecas City Zacatecas () is the principal city within the municipality in Mexico of the same name, and the capital and the largest city of the state of Zacatecas. Located in north-central Mexico, the city had its start as a Spanish mining camp in the mid ...

. He was an active member of 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 also a member and founder of several important Mexican artistic movements including Los Interioristas (Nueva Presencia), El Salón Independiente, and La Confrontación 66.

Early life

Icaza was born in the Mexican embassy in San Salvador on 5 October 1930, the son of a well known diplomat. Much of his childhood was spent in Germany during the rise of the Nazis. As he spent much time alone as a child, he began painting. His youth was very nomadic, as his family travelled to countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and America. A stay in Madrid exposed Icaza to the works of European masters. After a year of studying political science at the University of Leuven, he decided to study painting at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts. In 1951, he moved to New York at the invitation of the Mexican painter

Rufino Tamayo Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico.Sullivan, 170-171Ades, 357 Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, ...

, whom he studied with. While in New York, Icaza also worked as a photography director. At the age of 25, he returned to Mexico and married Concepción Solana Morales. They had five children: Francisco, Miguel, Pablo, Concha and Teresa. In his early years in Mexico City, he continued studying the art of painting under Antonio Rodríguez Luna, and considered him to be one of his primary teachers. From the 1950s to 1968 Icaza remained in Mexico, but the political turmoil following the

Tlatelolco massacre On October 2, 1968 in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, the Mexican Armed Forces opened fire on a group of unarmed civilians in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas who were protesting the upcoming 1968 Summer Olympics. The Mexican government and ...

caused him to leave Mexico again, not returning permanently until 1990. During that time he lived or spent time in the United States, Guatemala, Colombia, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Career

Icaza began his career in 1947 with his first teacher, an Armenian painter and refugee, at the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon, where Icaza swore before the Olympic gods that the rest of his life would be dedicated to painting. In 1961, Icaza founded an artist group called Los Interioristas or Nueva Presencia with painter

Arnold Belkin Arnold Belkin (December 9, 1930 – July 3, 1992) was a Canadian- Mexican painter credited for continuing the Mexican muralism tradition at a time when many Mexican painters were shifting away from it. Born and raised in western Canada, he ...

. In 1968, he formed the Salón Independiente along with

Vicente Rojo Almazán Vicente Rojo Almazán (15 March 1932 – 17 March 2021) was a Spanish-Mexican painter, graphic designer, and sculptor. His daughter, Alba Rojo Cama Alba Teresa Rojo Cama (28 April 1961 – 16 August 2016) was a Mexican sculptor known for her ...

and

Manuel Felguérez Manuel Felguérez Barra (December 12, 1928June 8, 2020) was a Mexican abstract artist, part of the Generación de la Ruptura that broke with the muralist movement of Diego Rivera and others in the mid 20th century. Early life Felguérez was ...

. In his life, Icaza worked in many mediums and formats. Icaza painted a mural at the Casino de la Selva for the theater renovated by the architect

Félix Candela Félix Candela Outeriño (; January 27, 1910 – December 7, 1997) was a Spanish and Mexican architect who was born in Madrid and at the age of 26, emigrated to Mexico, acquiring double nationality. He is known for his significant role ...

. The mural, ''La Farándula'' was dedicated to Bertolt Brecht as an apology for the world of clowns and actors, inspired by

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a " play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with mu ...

. Other murals created by Icaza include: Computadoras Represoras, for the Mexican Pavilion at Osaka, Japan; Canto al Barroco Maya, for the Mexican Pavilion at Montreal Canadá; and Urban Flowers for the Mexican Pavilion at Hemisfair in Houston, Texas. Icaza also created a monumental sculpture dedicated to the muralist painter José Clemente Orozco. Icaza was a prolific easel oil painter and a prolific drawer with ink, gouache and water color. Icaza also published several books, including ''La Fiera Malvada'' (1971), ''Me quiero ir al mar'' (1985), and ''Llegando a puerto en sentido contrario''. Icaza rejected the commercialization of art but admitted that an artist needs to live from his work, taking advantage of different opportunities. Despite his strong criticism of the Mexican government during his life, he felt no contradiction in taking grants from official sources, saying that the arts of a country are always their best things to show to the world, and he is part of that. His government affiliations have included a position as a cultural attaché for the Mexican embassy in Colombia . In 1993, he received a special grant from

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 ...

to return to Mexico and paint in oils full-time, after his work on drawings that expressed his wishes to "leave by the sea" (''Me quiero ir al mar''). Icaza's work has been exhibited in various venues in Mexico and abroad. Major exhibitions during his lifetime include the Museo de Arte Moderno (1979, 1981 and 1998), the

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of ...

and the

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Mission The stated mission of ...

. In 2011, he had an exhibition at the Galería Machado in Mexico City, sponsored by CONACULTA. The Museo de Arte Moderno holds several of Icaza's works. Icaza was a member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and an active member of Salón Independiente and the movement Confrontación 66.

Later life and death

In the early 2000s, Icaza was involved in a controversy related to his mural installed at the

. In 2001, the Costco group bought the former casino to build new facilities, a move whose validity Icaza questioned. He protested the sale and the plan to restore his and other murals. The project went ahead, but the artists were not permitted to see the restoration work. After the murals were shown to the public in their new location in 2004, Icaza and other artists denounced the works as copies or fakes, claiming the originals were destroyed. He was married to Tony Marcín for 24 years and lived in Mexico until his death. Icaza died at the age of 83 in

on the afternoon of 3 May 2014.

Artistry

Icaza has been classified as 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 muralism, Mexican School of Painting, more commonly called Mexican muralism post ...

, the art movement that followed Mexican muralism. He had social content in his work, that reflected his socialist ideals, much like the muralists; however his painting was not a communication with the masses. He experimented with a wide range of themes and techniques. His production had marked periods, from neo figuration to criticism and from there to works that recall the ancient cultures as humorous and satirical recurrences. Following the line of the Interiorists, he painted self-portraits revelatory of his own state of mind. He produced a series of oil paintings and drawings of prostitutes and the

Lumpenproletariat In Marxist theory, the ''Lumpenproletariat'' () is the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary ...

that shows influence from

German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

and symbolist painter

James Ensor James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic g ...

. The artist states that while he has changed styles and techniques, elements of expressionism remain constant in his work, stating “When I draw I try to transmit my obsessions as a thinking being, as a vital part of the 20th century; my usual themes are life and death.” Icaza produced

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

s, engravings and drawings conceived in book form such as La fiera malvada, Animales míticos, Breve historia de una mano juguetona, El viaje erótico, Sancho escuchando la lectura del Quijote, Me quiero ir al Mar and Llegando a puerto en sentido contrario. The images here were not conceived as illustrations for texts rather he invented arguments and used a language of ideographs with have a similarity to symbolism and surrealism. The artist spoke multiple languages and was a devout reader of

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...

. He was a friend of

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...

and

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxle ...

and admirer of José Clemente Orozco, all of whom affected his work, as well as his political ideas, which were strongly socialist and did not change over his life. Icaza was well-versed in contemporary and past artistic movements, and also had ample knowledge of ancient cultures and the literatures of various countries and epochs. The artist stated he was fascinated by codices and other historical works that take advantage of signs and images to convey their meaning.

Legacy

In 2019, a retrospective exhibition of 145 of Icaza's works was presented by the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, titled "Francisco Icaza: me quiero ir al mar."

References