Luis Ortiz Monasterio
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Luis Ortiz Monasterio (August 23, 1906 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 ...
– February 16, 1990 in Mexico City) was a Mexican
sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
noted for his monumental works such as the Monumento a la Madre and the Nezahualcoyotl Fountain in Chapultepec Park. His work was recognized in 1967 with the Premio Nacional de Artes and was a founding member of the
Academia de Artes The Academia de Artes (AA) is the Mexican Academy of Arts founded 1967/1968 by CONACULTA for the promotion of Mexican art. Seat of the institution is the Museo Nacional de San Carlos in Mexico City. The Slogan of the Acadademy is ''elevación por el ...
.


Life

Luis Ortiz Monasterio (full name Luis Ortiz Monasterio del Campillo) was born in Mexico City, losing his father the year he was born. In 1920, he spent a year at a teacher’s training course at the Escuela Normal para Maestros while studying drawing at night 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 ...
. He later registered as a matriculated student, specializing in engraving, drawing and sculpture. Because of the family’s economic situation, he went to Los Angeles, where he worked and studied, coming into contact with the works of
Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
, Brâncuși and
Wilhelm Lehmbruck Wilhelm Lehmbruck (4 January 188125 March 1919) was a German sculptor. Biography Born in Meiderich (part of Duisburg from 1905), he was the fourth of eight children born to the miner Wilhelm Lehmbruck and his wife Margaretha. He was able to stu ...
. In 1927, he participated in a workshop at the Escuela Libre de Escultura y Talla Directa founded by Guillermo Ruiz at the
San Ildefonso College Colegio de San Ildefonso, currently is a museum and cultural center in Mexico City, considered to be the birthplace of the Mexican muralism movement. San Ildefonso began as a prestigious Jesuit boarding school, and after the Reform War it gain ...
, which promoted sculpting Mexican themes and values into native rock. For the next several years, he lived in the United States and Mexico, before permanently settling in Mexico City. In addition to art, he was an author of books and monographs, which generally contained philosophic and poetic references. Ortiz Monasterio retired from his sculpting career in 1989, dying a year later at the age of 83 in Mexico City from multiple natural causes. His body was cremated at the
Panteón de Dolores The Panteón Civil de Dolores is the largest cemetery in Mexico and contains the "Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres" ( en, Rotunda of Illustrious Persons). It is located on Constituyentes Avenue in the Miguel Hidalgo borough of Mexico City, between ...
in Mexico City.


Career

With a career that spanned over sixty years, Ortiz Monasterio is one of the main figures of Mexican sculpture in the 20th century. He is one of few to be active during the dominance of the Mexican muralism movement and one of fewer of the century to be remembered. The artist began his career in 1927 as a drawing teacher at the Escuela de Maestros Contructores of 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 ...
, after returned from studies in the United States. He went on to be a long-time teacher of the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas ENAP from 1939 to 1962 and taught at La Esmeralda as well. In 1928, Ortiz Monasterio returned to Los Angeles to sculpt full-time, having his first individual exhibition at the Book Shop Gallery and a later one at Gump’s Art Gallery in San Francisco. In the 1930s he created a number of sculptures which made him known for their originality of form and texture: ''El soldado herido'' (1932), ''La Victoria'' (1935), ''El nacimiento de Apolo'' (1936) and ''La Venus'' (1937) . He had two shows at the Galería de Arte Mexicano an at UNAM in 1935 and 1936. In 1946 he participated in the International Sculpture Exhibition at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
, which acquired a work called ''Cabeza de mujer'' (1945). Another piece was acquired by the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York. His success in United States brought him back to Mexico, receiving commissions for monumental works. The first of these was El llamado de al revolución in stone, carved between 1932 and 1934. The next in a similar technique, was El esclavo, which has since been lost. Later works include the reliefs for the Benemérita Escuela Nacional de Maestros, the Monumento a los defensores de la ciudad de Puebla (1943), the Monumento a la Madre in Parque Sullivan (1948) the Nezahualcoyotl Fountain in
Chapultepec Park Chapultepec, more commonly called the "Bosque de Chapultepec" (Chapultepec Forest) in Mexico City, is one of the largest city parks in Mexico, measuring in total just over 686 hectares (1,695 acres). Centered on a rock formation called Chapultep ...
, the pórtico for the open air theater of the Plaza Cívica of the Unidad Independencia house complex and the Tigres y Águilas sculpture at the Centro Medico Nacional of IMSS(1963). He also created sculptures for cities such as
Xalapa Xalapa or Jalapa (, ), officially Xalapa-Enríquez (), is the capital city of the Mexican state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In the 2005 census the city reported a population of 387,879 and the municipality of which ...
and
Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , also , nah, Acapolco), is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Acapulco is located on a deep, semicircular bay and has bee ...
. The first award for his work was a prize in sculpture from the Secretaría de Educación Pública in 1946. In 1967 he received the Premio Nacional de Artes in sculpture. In 1968 he was a founding member of the Academia de Artes and later received a diploma and medal for his teaching career at ENAP. Posthumous tributes include one in 1992 at the OMR Gallery, and a retrospective in 2011 at the Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo. However, since his career, about fifteen percent of his work is missing or destroyed and much of the rest is in deteriorated condition, especially the monumental works.


Artistry

Ortiz Monasterio is of the generation of Mexican sculptors which includes Oliverio Martínez, Francisco Marín, Juan Cruz Reyes, Federico Cantú, Federico Canessi and Carlos Bracho, which adopted elements of
Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
and
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 ...
, using figures from the working class and indigenous populations. His artistic style is characterized by the use of classical and geometric elements, along with pre Hispanic influence. There is also influence from an artist named Ivan Mestrock, a Yugoslav artist whose works he saw in art magazines from Europe. In his works, he applied concepts from
numerology Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...
and
Pythagorism Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on and around the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras established the first Pythagorean community in the ancient Greek colony of Kroton, ...
along with metaphysical concepts from the Aztec and Mayan cultures. His work can be divided into two types. The first are monumental public works with historical themes, such as the Nezahualcoyotl Fountain in Chapultepec (1956) and the Plaza Cívica de la Unidad Indepedencia (1962). His smaller works often consists of sensual human forms as well as those with a mechanical feel.


References


External links

* * * Luis Ortiz Monasteri
Cantú Y de Teresa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ortiz Monasterio, Luis 1906 births 1990 deaths Artists from Mexico City 20th-century Mexican sculptors Academic staff of the National Autonomous University of Mexico Recipients of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin Academic staff of Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda"