Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this special article written in Mexico and published in the Colombian art magazine Plástica [Visual Arts], the Guatemalan artist Carlos Mérida discusses the values and processes involved in pictorial abstraction. Mérida describes abstraction as [...]

This article is one of the few that describes the murals painted in several primary schools in Mexico, thus it allows us to know what it was like before its total or partial destruction. The title of this mural by Pablo O’Higgins was Vida y [...]

In spite of showing his work in solo photography exhibitions, Carlos Mérida’s favorite subject to write about was Emilio Amero’s cinematographic work. Specifically, he focuses on 3-3-3 shorts, whose balance surprises him, since the medium works [...]

This essay presents a dense description of the clothing of certain indigenous groups in Guatemala. The writer describes, as far as possible, the fabrics used in different garments in a country where "indigenous people are still of pure stock in many [...]

Carlos Mérida states that he will base his commentary on the exhibition of the Escuelas Libres de Pintura [Open-Air Schools of Painting], taking place at the Palacio de Minería, on the writings of Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo), which he feels could [...]

Carlos Mérida affirms that Filippo Tommaso Martinetti launched futurism, a movement that was based on the principle of dynamism in its broadest conception. In [Mérida’s opinion, futurism and all artistic schools do not produce a definitive result [...]

In this newspaper article, Carlos Mérida, a Guatemalan artist who lived in Mexico, quotes from an essay he had written for the exhibition catalogue, Amero 25 nuevas fotografías [Amero: 25 New Photographs]. He also includes three of Emilio Amero’s [...]

Carlos Mérida reports that given the global importance that Mexican painting has taken on and the interest generated by its evolution, the Departamento del Distrito Federal [DDF, Mexico City-City Hall] founded an art gallery to exhibit works by [...]

Carlos Mérida asserts that photography is an art which has no developmental links to the advance of technology (as is the case with science) since daguerreotypes can be just as beautiful as contemporary photographs. For this author it is necessary [...]

During the 1940s, Carlos Mérida’s reflections tend toward abstract art and its protagonists. In this article, the painter states that for those who are not familiar with abstract painting, a symbolic form of interpretation is the most logical. [...]

After remarking how difficult it was for artists to exhibit work due to the great expense and the lack of existing spaces, the painter and critic Carlos Mérida talks about the paintings that Rufino Tamayo exhibited in his latest show. Mérida says [...]

Carlos Mérida points out the two essential factors for the success in New York of Emilio Amero’s sketches. One is novelty and public interest in different things; the other is the intrinsic goodness of the evolutionary spirit and the strength of [...]

In this article, the visual artist Carlos Mérida discusses the work of the photographer María Santibáñez, describing her approach to the studio portrait and explaining why her photographs were so admirable. Referring to their formal [...]

Carlos Mérida divides his essay into two parts. In the first one, he outlines the historical development of artistic activity in Mexico, beginning with the general strike of 1910 and ending at the dawn of the muralist period. In the second, Mérida [...]

Carlos Mérida starts this lecture by commenting on the effort made by U.S. artists to found a center for the Union Artists Gallery, which would surely lay the foundation for the future of art in the United States. He notes the close affinity between [...]

This article by Carlos Mérida begins by citing Raynolds Maryland, who stated in a text published in the New York Herald, that Mexico was experiencing a birth and not a renaissance, with reference to Mexican art. This birth resulted in a discovery [...]

Carlos Mérida reviews the 1926 Exhibition of the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes. He comments that what stands out for its pictorial values, is the group of works presented by the Escuelas de Pintura al Aires Libre [Open-Air Painting Schools], but [...]

What is most relevant in Carlos Mérida’s article is his statement about the little appreciation granted to popular art, which he considers the only possible aesthetic manifestation of the country. For Mérida, the European artistic invasion still [...]

Carlos Mérida considers that Mexican painting belongs to the Americas because the spirit of its ancestors floats anew all over the Indo-Hispanic land. The author believes that the development of Mexican painting is directed by traditional rules [...]

Carlos Mérida sends this letter to the magazine Ars to protest the article by Samuel Ramos entitled “Twenty years of painting in Mexico,” published in the first issue of said periodical. The artist expresses his disagreement, pointing out the [...]

In this essay, the painter Carlos Mérida emphasizes Germán Cueto’s capacity to work with different materials such as iron, tin, and plastics, by connecting them to a new aesthetic modality called “design.” For Mérida, design is the vital [...]

 Carlos Mérida comments that in Mexico xylography [wood engraving] has become the prevalent artistic trend of the time. He describes some characteristics of this technique, such as the use of pure contrast between light and dark. On the other hand [...]

Carlos Mérida comments that the mere imitation of the motifs of popular art, constantly repeated in the artistic production, may lead to the creation of “standard” painters, without any purpose, since the production of the popular artists will [...]

Carlos Mérida notes that, though much has been written about Mexican folk art, its full potential is largely overlooked, since it is in fact the essential expression of a nation built on the bedrock of its own culture. In this painter’s opinion, [...]

In the review that Carlos Mérida writes about the exhibit by Fernando Best Pontones at the Galería de Arte, he underlines the importance of exhibiting decorative drawings, since such art contributes to the development of an interesting Mexican [...]

In this article, Carlos Mérida points out that the popular arts, as regards education, represent a point of departure. However, if one intends to produce high painting and/or national expression, the popular element must be an animator, a basis for [...]

This article by Carlos Mérida sets forth the different formal and basic elements for the integration of several art fields: scale, rhythm, color and harmony. In the artist’s opinion, the new generation of Mexican painters possesses a tendency [...]

Carlos Mérida sets forth eleven tenets on the development of painting in relation to the integration of the arts; these function both as a manifesto and as an introduction to the catalog. For the artist, functional painting is equivalent to [...]

By 1954, Carlos Mérida had published 11 tenets related to what he called functional painting and its importance in the integration of the visual arts, as well as some theoretical concepts regarding architectonic-pictorial space. For Mérida, at that [...]

Carlos Mérida describes Impressionism as an artistic movement that promoted freedom of thought and opinion. This led to a great proliferation of schools and pictorial forms of expression that, in spite of having dealt the fatal blow to the stifling [...]

In this article Carlos Mérida reviews the annual exhibition at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes. He emphasizes the show’s disorder, the lack of information to guide the public, and the unevenness of both quantity and quality among the [...]

Carlos Mérida quotes José Clemente Orozco at length in this article. Orozco had been invited to paint a fresco to accompany the show 20 Siglos de Arte Mexicano [20 Centuries of Mexican Art], presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1940 [...]

Carlos Mérida discusses the creative limitations of sculpture, which in contrast to painting, has lacked a natural evolution in spirit and experimentation; he believes it has also lacked contact with other manifestations of universal sculpture and [...]

This essay is the first sketch of some of Carlos Mérida’s original concepts on Integración Plástica [Arts Integration]. He states that functional painting—the only path in contemporary art—should be created for the majority of people, in [...]

Taking Rufino Tamayo’s exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes [Palace of Fine Arts] in 1948 as a starting point, Carlos Mérida writes an essay in which he analyzes Tamayo’s work with reference to its composition, themes, styles and influences [...]

This essay is a severe critique of the literary figures that at that time served as art critics in Mexico. According to the author they critiqued art although they possessed no knowledge of the field. For Carlos Mérida, Saturnino Herrán’s art [...]

In his comments on the work of José Guadalupe Posada, Carlos Mérida highlights the plasticity of Posada’s artwork. He goes on to point out that both Leopoldo Méndez and Alfredo Zalce have carried on the tradition initiated by Manuel Manilla, [...]

Painter Carlos Mérida thanks and praises Alfredo Ramos Martínez, who was then director of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, for organizing a series of exhibitions that would influence the artistic development of Mexico. In the introduction to [...]