Jesús Escobedo Trejo (June 24, 1918 – October 13, 1978) was a Mexican artist specializing in drawing and

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

, one of the founding members of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. Escobedo was born in El Oro, México, moving to

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 ...

to study at the Escuela de Pintura al Aire Libre under

Gabriel Fernández Ledesma Gabriel Fernández Ledesma (May 30, 1900 – August 26, 1983) was a Mexican painter, printmaker, sculptor, graphic artist, writer and teacher. He began his career working with artist Roberto Montenegro then moved into publishing and education ...

and at the

Academy of San Carlos The Academy of San Carlos ( es, Academia de San Carlos) is located at 22 Academia Street in just northeast of the main plaza of Mexico City. It was the first major art academy and the first art museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1781 as th ...

under

Francisco Díaz de León Francisco Díaz de León (September 24, 1897 – December 29, 1975) was a Mexican graphic artist, notable for pioneering much of modern Mexican graphic arts. He spent his childhood around books and when he studied art in Mexico City, he specializ ...

. Escobedo was a politically motivated artist, belonging to the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionaries and the

Taller de Gráfica Popular The ''Taller de Gráfica Popular'' (Spanish: "People's Graphic Workshop") is an artist's print collective founded in Mexico in 1937 by artists Leopoldo Méndez, Pablo O'Higgins, and Luis Arenal. The collective was primarily concerned with using ar ...

. One of his most important exhibitions was that in 1938, when he was part of a collective exhibition 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 ...

, organized by the Comité Nacional Femenino Pro-Pago de la Deuda Petrolera. In 1945, 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 ...

to create eight

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

s about the city of New York. However, much of his work was as a book illustrator, working for the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico as well as work with several publishers in the United States. His most important work in that country was the illustration of the book “Lecturas Hispanoamericanas” in 1946. Escobedo died at the age of 60 of heart stoppage and was buried in the San Nicolás Tolentino cemetery in Iztapalapa, Mexico City.

References

1918 births 1978 deaths Mexican artists Artists from Michoacán People from Santa Clara del Cobre {{Mexico-artist-stub