Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This document records an informal conversation between the art critic Mário Baratta and the Brazilian artist Aldemir Martins. They discuss the motives that led him to join the lengthy list of internal migrants leaving the state of Ceará [...]

In this bilingual overview of the life and art of Carlos Alfonzo, curator Olga Viso provides biographical information about the artist, with an emphasis on the impact his immigration to the United States had on his life and work. Viso first discusses [...]

This essay commemorates the first anniversary of the arrival of the Sinaia, the French ship that brought the first wave of Spanish refugees to Veracruz in 1939, and mentions that the date coincides with the shameful Nazi occupation of Paris (June [...]

Ángel Rosenblat studies the changes that have occurred in the Spanish language over the last two hundred years, supported by his historical and linguistic research into various cultures. The philologist analyzes the place of that language in the [...]

Juan Larrea wrote these words while looking at the panel shown by Joan Miró, the famous Spanish painter, in his country’s pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Though it is a product of the [...]

Ricardo Pau-Llosa’s essay discusses six generations of modern and contemporary Cuban artists, most in exile, and their art as it deals with alienation and uprooting. According to Pau-Llosa, the first generation (1920s) includes the founding fathers [...]

The way Crespo de la Serna sees Leonora Carrington is that, in spite of being English-born, her artistic temperament is not of a kind to be circumscribed or limited by a specific geographic environment. Hence, “the world in which she breathes has [...]

This is a review of an exhibition of paintings by young Spanish artists living in exile in Mexico. It remarks on the group’s preference for depth over variety, in keeping with their vision of pondering deeply all aspects of their lives. Their [...]

This article states the mission of the Junta de Cultura Española [Board of Spanish Culture] (relocated to Mexico), which was to guarantee the continued spiritual aspect of Spanish culture by supporting the work of Spanish intellectuals living in [...]

Best known for his portrait of Andalusian poet Antonio Machado—which hangs in the Ateneo Español de México—Cristóbal Ruiz mostly painted landscapes of Spain. He worked mainly in the region of Castilla, which he portrayed in luminous, vivid [...]

Victor Alejandro Sorell’s essay is a comprehensive study addressing more than one hundred twentieth-century Chicano and Mexican artists and collectives active between the 1960s and 1990s, including film and performance practitioners and activists, [...]

Following the death of the artist and writer José Moreno Villa, the author of this article recalls the time, many years earlier, when they were both at the famous Residencia de Estudiantes [Students’ Residence] in Madrid. Even in those days, [...]

Enrique F. Gual reviews an exhibition at the Galería Prisse at which the artist José Bartolí mainly shows his oil paintings, in spite of being better known for his drawings. To Bartolí, the oil paintings represent a phase in which he is [...]

Laurette Séjourné discusses the work of Ramón Gaya, the Spanish painter and art critic who was living in exile in Mexico at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Séjourné remarks that, on closer inspection, Gaya’s paintings appear to be “alive [...]

In this article, Pere Calders refers to the Catalan sculptor José Giménez Botey—who lives in exile in Mexico—as a Latino, Mediterranean artist who was profoundly influenced by both his native land, Cataluña, and by Mexico, the country where he [...]

The critic, painter and graphic designer Miguel Prieto visits the exhibition of Arturo Souto, with whom he shares the condition of being in exile. He discovers that Souto’s painting has taken elements from Spain’s dark days—visiting the towns, [...]

This brief text refers to a 1935 newspaper article by Manuel Abril about the Concurso Nacional de Escultura [National Sculpture Contest] whose theme was “Conmemoración a Lope de Vega” [In Remembrance of Lope de Vega]. Abril reports that the [...]

José Bergamín, the writer in exile and critic, compares poetry with painting as in classical times, and uses the language of poetry to discuss the painting of Antonio Rodríguez Luna. Bergamín refers to Rodríguez Luna’s main theme, which [...]

In this review of the New York exhibition of works by Ángel Botello Barros—the Galician painter living in exile—Manuel Valldeperes discusses the values he perceives in the paintings, referring in particular to the artist’s use of color as “ [...]

Juan Larrea, the Spanish writer living in exile in Mexico, refers to an article by André Breton (“Situación del surrealismo entre las dos guerras” [The State of Surrealism between the Two Wars]), in which the leader of the movement outlines a [...]

José Renau discusses the significance of the first Spanish-American Art Biennial, sponsored by Francisco Franco. According to Renau, the goal of the exhibition was to “establish a link between Spain’s robust pictorial tradition and the effete [...]

This valiant text discusses the inauguration of the Exposición Bienal Hispanoamericana (1951) [Hispano-American Biennial Exhibition] in Francisco Franco’s Madrid. It was organized by the Fascist government of the Caudillo por la Gracia de Dios to [...]

A number of art critics were surprised by the small exhibition of works by Remedios Varo at the Galería Diana in 1956. This was the first time that many of them heard that the Spanish émigré was a painter. Crespo de la Serna was surprised to find [...]

In this article Ceferino Palencia, the Spanish art critic and painter living in exile in Mexico, sketches a brief biography of Roberto Fernández Balbuena, portraying him as a well-known architect and painter with a clearly defined vision. He [...]

Josep Renau believes that, to fully understand a work of art, one must know something about the artist’s chronological evolution, the artist’s work, and the artist’s milieu. He states: “a work of art should be . . . the latest expression of [...]

This is a review of an essay by the Mexican architect Carlos Obregón Santacilia titled “El maquinismo, la vida y la arquitectura” [Machine-ism, Life and Architecture], in which Enrique Díez-Canedo— the Spanish poet, critic, and essayist [...]

Based on a visit of the exhibition at the Salón de la Junta de Cultura Española [The Salon of the Board of Spanish Culture] (originally established in Paris in 1939, but later, due to the World War II, relocated to Mexico City), the author reviews [...]

The author reflects on a comparison between abstraction and realism, presenting it as a grave problem of the era. For José Renau, the main trend of the “bourgeois” culture is based on the abstract and trivial aspect of intellectual creation. He [...]