Germán Cueto (February 8 or 9, 1883 – February 14, 1975) was a
Mexican artist. He was part of the initial wave of artistic activity following the
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution () was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its ...
. However, his stay in Europe from 1927 to 1932 moved him into more European and more abstract work, especially sculpture. While he had a number of exhibitions in Mexico during his life including a retrospective at the
Museo de Arte Moderno in 1965, he did not have the kind of success that many of his contemporaries did as he did not follow the then dominant themes or styles of Mexican muralism movement. His work was considered to be avant-garde and is considered to be the first Mexican
abstract art
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...
ist, creating masks and sculptures of wood, wire, plastic, sheet metal, ceramic, electrical wire and other materials, traditional and non-traditional.
Life
Germán Cueto was born Germán Gutiérrez Cueto y Vidal on February 8, 1893, in
Mexico City
Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...
, to parents Javier Gutiérrez Cueto and Paz Vidal.
His father was from an intellectual and socially influential family from
Cantabria
Cantabria (, ; ) is an autonomous community and Provinces of Spain, province in northern Spain with Santander, Cantabria, Santander as its capital city. It is called a , a Nationalities and regions of Spain, historic community, in its current ...
, Spain, related to politician Matilde de la Torre and
María Blanchard .
He was studying chemistry when the Mexican Revolution broke out, interrupting his studies as he fled to Spain to escape the fighting.
At this time he met sculptor
Fidencio Nava, which convinced him to change careers to art.
When he returned to Mexico in 1918, he entered the
Academy of San Carlos. However, he did not like its formalism and left shortly thereafter.
He later studied in Paris.
In 1923, he was a cofounder of the
Stridentism movement in Mexico, along with
Manuel Maples Arce,
Germán List Arzubide,
Salvador Gallardo,
Silvestre Revueltas
Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (December 31, 1899 – October 5, 1940) was a Mexican classical music composer, a violinist, and conductor.
Life
Revueltas was born in Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango, and studied at the National Conservatory of Mu ...
,
Jean Charlot,
Edward Weston and
Tina Modotti.
The goal of this movement was to reshape literature and art entirely, but fading by the end of the decade.
From 1927 to 1932, he lived in Paris, traveling to the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
,
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.
Here he created a circle of contacts and friends in the European vanguard often through María Blanchard. These included
Julio González,
Otto van Rees (artist),
Angelina Beloff,
Adam Fischer,
Joaquín Torres García,
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Lithuanian-born French-American Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, domi ...
and
Constantin Brâncuși
Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter, and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism ...
.
He became a member of the
Cercle et Carré
Cercle is French for ''circle''. It can refer to:
* Circle (administrative division)
* Cercle (French colonial), an administrative unit of the French Overseas Empire
* Cercle (Mali), the Malian administrative unit
** The specific Cercles of Mal ...
where he became associated with
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, , ), was a Dutch Painting, painter and Theory of art, art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He w ...
,
Jean Arp
Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (; ; 16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist.
Early life
Arp was born Hans Peter Wilhelm Ar ...
,
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...
and
Georges Vantongerloo. After the death of María Blanchard in 1932, he decided to return to Mexico with his family, inviting Angelina Beloff,
Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art.
Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...
's abandoned first wife, to accompany them.
In Mexico, he identified politically and socially with the dominant Mexican school of painting, but his aesthetics were more European due to his stay in Paris.
He did not like the exclusiveness of the art scene in Mexico and for this reason tended to stay apart from his Mexican contemporaries.
Cueto's first wife was
Lola Cueto whom he married in 1919. Together they lived in Paris for many years. The union produced two daughters, named Ana Maria and Mireya.
Mireya Cueto (born 1922) became a well-known puppeteer, writer and playwright, winning the Bellas Artes Medal for her life's work.
Mireya began her career helping her parents.
Cueto later had a son, named Javier Cueto. His second wife was María Galán, and his widow was Ester Echeverría.
Germán Cueto died on February 14, 1975, at age 83 from heart failure.
Career
Cueto worked in a number of disciplines but is best known for mask making, especially related to theatre and abstract sculpture.
He began his career in 1922 as an assistant to sculptor
Ignacio Asúnsolo, who work working on renovations to the
Secretaría de Educación Pública building .
Cueto was a member of the Stridentism movement in the 1920s, when he began to make masks with cardboard and other materials. In 1924 he had an exhibition of these masks at the “El Café de Nadie” affiliated with the Stridentism movement, most based on friends including one dedicated to
Leopoldo Méndez .
He continued to make masks for theatrical productions and exhibition, with the number of masks made over his lifetime estimated at over one thousand.
Although Cueto was part of the initial wave of artistic activity spurred by the Secretaría de Educación Pública under
José Vasconcelos
José Vasconcelos Calderón (28 February 1882 – 30 June 1959), called the "cultural " of the Mexican Revolution, was an important Mexicans, Mexican writer, philosopher, and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial pers ...
, the movement limited much of artistic production, especially sculpture to themes related to praising the nation, liberty and work.
Cueto's time in Europe in the late 1920s and early 1930s pushed him into a different direction. While considered to be in Mexico's vanguard, he was frequently frustrated by his inability to sell works after his return to Mexico. He was frequently excluded from public projects as his works did not relate to Mexican heroes or Mexican folkloric themes.
Most of his work would not be appreciated until late in his career and after his death, as a pioneer of abstract and modern art in Mexico and Latin America. Although still relatively unknown in Mexico, his work is more valued by collectors, especially small bronze pieces.
While never having the success that many of his contemporaries did, Cueto did have a number of exhibitions during his lifetime. His first was of masks in 1924 at the “El Café de Nadie” in Mexico City. Living in Paris, he exhibited with the
Cercle et le Carré (Circle and Square) group, of which he was a member, as well as at the Renaissance Gallery in Paris (1928), the Quatre Gallery in Paris (1929), the 23 Gallery in Paris (1930), the
Galeries Dalmau in Spain (1930) and at a collective exhibition in Switzerland.
After returning to Mexico, he had some exhibitions such as the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City (1932), the
UNAM
The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countries. It also has 34 ...
Gallery (1933), a major individual exhibition at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in 1944, Mont-Oredain Gallery in Mexico City (1948), Glardecor Gallery in Mexico City (1951), the
Salón de la Plástica Mexicana (1954), Excélsior Gallery and Proteo Gallery in Mexico City (1955) and the Instituto Francés de América Latina in 1960.
He had one major individual exhibition outside of Mexico at the Suenks-Franska Konstgalleriet in
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
in 1954.
Despite his reputation for being avant-garde, his work was not recognized or shown at the prestigious
Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City until 1965, when the institution dedicated a “very deserved” retrospective of his work. It has a larger exhibition of this type in 1981 after the artist's death.
Other exhibitions of his work after his death include the Futurismo & futurism exhibition at the
Palazzo Grassi
Palazzo Grassi (also known as the Palazzo Grassi-Stucky) is a building in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice (Italy), between the Palazzo Moro Lin and the campo San Samuele.
History First owners
During the 16th ...
in
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
(1986),
Centro Cultural Santo Domingo in
Oaxaca
Oaxaca, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of the Mexico, United Mexican States. It is divided into municipalities of Oaxaca, 570 munici ...
(2000), the Federico Silva Museum in
San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí, officially the Free and Sovereign State of San Luis Potosí, is one of the 32 states which compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 59 municipalities and is named after its capital city, San Luis Potosí.
It ...
(2005),
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. I ...
(2005),
the Carrillo Gil Museum in Mexico City (2006)
and the Museo de Arte in
Querétaro
Querétaro, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Querétaro, is one of the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Querétaro, 18 municipalities. Its capital city is Querétaro Cit ...
(2007).
His canvas works can be found primarily in museum in Mexico and Europe with a notable collection held by the Blaisten Collection in Mexico City.
His sculptures, including monumental works can be found in institutions in Mexico and Europe such as the Sala Manuel M. Ponce at the
Palacio de Bellas Artes
The Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts) is a prominent cultural center in Mexico City. It hosts performing arts events, literature events and plastic arts galleries and exhibitions (including important permanent Mexican murals). "Bella ...
and the Museo de Arte Moderno.
On permanent display at the Museo de Arte Moderno is the sculpture Tehuana, which consists of sheet metal about 110 cm high.
He did ceramics work for the Arabia Workshop in
Helsinki
Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...
and a porcelain piece for the
Royal Copenhagen
Royal Copenhagen, officially the Royal Porcelain Factory (), is a Danish manufacturer of porcelain products and was founded in Copenhagen in 1775 under the protection of Danish Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Dowager Queen Juliane Marie. ...
in
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
.
One major monumental work is an iron piece painted in enamel, for the
Gustavsberg porcelain plant in Sweden sponsored by the Swedish-Mexican Society in 1954.
In Mexico, he created the monumental piece called El Corredor (The Runner) for the
1968 Mexico City Olympics, places in front of the stadium at the
Ciudad Universitaria .
Another notable area for Cueto was theatre and education. After he returned to Mexico from Europe,
Carlos Chávez
Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez (13 June 1899 – 2 August 1978) was a Mexican composer, conducting, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influence ...
employed him to develop characters for an educational puppet theatre. From 1924 to 1926 he taught art at the Artes y Oficio Gabriela Mistral and at the Normal para Maestros. He also went to teach in
Hidalgo as part of a cultural mission organized by
Rafael Ramírez Heredia .
In 1948 he directed the Dance Institute at the Palacio de Bellas Artes for a time, creating masks for various performances.
From 1956 to 1959 he was an art professor at the
Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda". In 1960 he became a teacher at the Escuela de Artesanias of the Ciudadela, teaching work with enamel.
Recognitions include honorable mention at the Bienal Nacional de Escultura in 1963 and 1964.
He was a founding member of the
Academia de Artes and a member of the
Salón de la Plástica Mexicana .
Artistry
Cueto created oils,
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
s, glass, ceramics, enamels,
collage
Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...
s, murals, ink drawings, sculpture and even some literature.
He was best known for masks and sculptures using various materials such as wire, clay, stone, iron, wood and more.
Cueto's early artistic influence from
Stridentism, an artistic and intellectual movement in Mexico in the 1920s of which he was a member. Like many other Strident artists, Cueto rejected traditional values and religious conventions.
This usually translated into pieces related to a vision of a future utopia.
Later influences included
Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture.
Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
,
Constructivism,
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
and later a more primitive look.
However, most of this is linked to his time (1927-1932) in Europe, where he was influenced directly by
Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
,
Brâncuși, Gargollo and
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic g ...
.
His artistic vision remained tied to Europe and the abstract art movement taking shape there, which was still very novel for Mexico. This made him the most vanguard sculptor of the first half of the 20th century in Mexico as well as the country's first abstract artist.
It also meant that his work as more influential in Europe than in Mexico.
One major aspect of his sculptural work is the use of new and unusual materials along with more traditional ones. He created sculptures of bronze, wood, wire, sheet metal, ceramics, enamel on metal, concrete, electrical cable, plastic and more.
His aesthetic followed much of
Umberto Boccioni
Umberto Boccioni (; ; 19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach ...
's 1912 Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture when said that sculpture should use and combine whatever materials needed to realize a piece. It also emphasized the abstract over the figurative.
Much of his experimentation was based on his knowledge of chemistry from his early student days and made him one of the most experimental sculptors in 20th century Mexico.
Examples include concrete, electrical cable and wire pieces such as Estela II, Máscara (1948) and El Nahual.
The sculpture Napoleón is done in limestone; Diálogo is done in multicolored wood.
Another important endeavor for Cueto was the creation of masks, the concept of which also figures in his sculpture and other work.
He made masks of
papier-mâché
file:JacmelMardiGras.jpg, upright=1.3, Mardi Gras papier-mâché masks, Haiti
Papier-mâché ( , , - the French term "mâché" here means "crushed and ground") is a versatile craft technique with roots in ancient China, in which waste paper is s ...
,
cartonería
Cartonería or papier-mâché sculptures are a Mexican handcrafts and folk art, traditional handcraft in Mexico. The papier-mâché works are also called "carton piedra" (rock cardboard) for the rigidness of the final product. These sculptures tod ...
, ceramic, plaster, wood, metal and wire.
Many of these masks were made for use in theatre, with him often returning to creating fantastical faces with innovative designs.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cueto, Lola
20th-century Mexican painters
Mexican male painters
Mexican muralists
Puppet designers
Mexican puppeteers
Artists from Mexico City
1883 births
1975 deaths
Academic staff of Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda"
20th-century Mexican sculptors
20th-century Mexican male artists
Members of the Academia de Artes