viernes, 28 de abril de 2017

Federico Cantú 1907-1989
Rapto de Centauro
Entre los centauros, el tercero con una identidad individual es Neso. El episodio mitológico del centauro Neso raptando a Deyanira, la prometida de Heracles


jueves, 20 de abril de 2017



Decía Cantú; a mi regreso a Montparnasse , me encontré con que mi Atelier había sido alquilado y la obra vendida al mejor postor , ahí debo de haber perdido miles de obras incluyendo dibujos , escultura , bocetos y oleos.


Lo curios es que esta historia seguiría repitiendo  y asi como lo narra a su llegada a Paris en 1930 , Cantú  se dirige de inmediato a su Atelier de Montparnasse , pero para mala fortuna ,  este ya estaba ocupado y cuando pregunta a el casero respecto a sus pertenecías el dice que las tiro . Lo que no imagina Cantú es que una vez re instalado en Paris con la idea de completar el ciclo de diez años iniciado en 1924, su obra quedara de nuevo en el limbo , nada mas que ahora jamás podrá regresar  primero es que como se lo narrara Antonin Artaud en su visita a Mexico en 1936, Francia se encuentra en la incertidumbre de una nueva guerra .


La Carpeta Dorian ; Es hoy por hoy el único documento  recuperado de esa suma de obras perdidas y  ahora se suma al gran catalogo de obra de Federico.


Este personaje demoniaco también esta presente en la obra Poética de Renato Leduc; a la que Cantu dedica una serie de dibujos que ilustran los diferentes pasajes que el poeta escribe en Paris.


Adolfo Cantú 
Cantú Y de Teresa Collection

martes, 18 de abril de 2017




Llegamos a vivir a la Colonia de Valle en la Ciudad de México despues de vivir unos años en Monterrey . Fue en el otoño de 1958 cuando nos instalamos en esta casa Y donde vivimos durante casi una década para posteriormente ya en 1969
Crecer en la casa Museo de Tlalpan 
 
Y asi luce en 1958 , la decoración quedo a cargo de mis padres y en uno de esos
divanes aparece Mamali , se ve tranquila pues por fin su hijo y sus nietos viven de nuevo en México
 la mesa de centro que es un simple tronco con patas aun llego a la casa de Tlalpan
los cuadros que están expuestos son todos regalos de papa nano

de izquierda a derecha 
retrato de Fede como San Juan , despues retrato de mi nieto como retacitos 
seguido por retrato de mi nieto Paco

retrato de Fede mi hijo y caritas de Fede mi nieto






  La colección también se extiende a prestamos a Museos y se incluye en un buen numero de exposiciones todos los años , además de trabajar en conjunto con la colección de Arte Cantú Y de Teresa , el acerbo MF&E contiene una dotada sección de arte europeo , herrería y jardín botánico.



Bo


Primavera de 2017.

lunes, 17 de abril de 2017


Les Années folles commencent en 1920 et se terminent en 1929 avec le début de la Grande Dépression.
À Paris, pendant la Première Guerre mondiale, la population n'a pas perdu l'art de s'amuser. On fit la fête au début pour se moquer de l'ennemi et se donner du courage : il allait prendre une belle raclée qui laverait l'affront de 1870 et ferait oublier la honte de l'affaire Dreyfus pour l'armée française disait-on. On poursuivit la fête ensuite, pour distraire les permissionnaires. Puis, quand trop d'horreurs eurent enlevé aux « poilus » l'envie de rire, la fête continua pour se consoler.
Après la fin du conflit, une génération nouvelle rêve d'un monde nouveau et proclame « Plus jamais ça ! ». On s'empresse de lui proposer de nouvelles griseries sur fond de musique. Venu d'Amérique avec les Alliés, le jazz fait son apparition mais également la danse, la radio et les sports, les industries avec les électroménagers etc, sur fond de très forte croissance économique...
L'utopie positiviste du xixe siècle et son crédo progressiste font place à un individualisme déchaîné et extravagant. André Gide et Marcel Proust donnent le ton littéraire de cette tendance qui s'exacerbe et croît avec le mouvement dada dont Tristan Tzara publie le manifeste. Le surréalisme d'André Breton n'est pas loin. L'Art nouveau foisonnant, fauché par la guerre, cède la place aux épures précieuses de l'Art déco.
Durant les Années folles, Montparnasse et Montmartre sont sans conteste les lieux de Paris les plus célèbres et les plus fréquentés, abritant ses prestigieux cafés tel la Coupole, le Dôme, la Rotonde et la Closerie des Lilas ou les salons comme celui de Gertrude Stein rue de Fleurus.
Montmartre, tout d'abord, constitue l'un des centres majeurs de ces lieux de rencontre entre ces intellectuels. Le quartier présente un aspect de modernité avec l'existence de trompettistes comme Arthur Briggs qui se produit à l'Abbaye. Mais pour l'écrivain américain Henry Miller comme beaucoup d'autres étrangers d'ailleurs, le carrefour Vavin-Raspail-Montparnasse est selon ses propres mots « le nombril du monde ». Il y est d'ailleurs venu écrire sa série des Tropiques.
À Paris, c'est plus précisément la rive gauche de la Seine qui est principalement concernée par les arts et les lettres, et tout cela se confirme durant les années 1920. En témoignent d'ailleurs la forte concentration de créateurs qui se sont installés au sein de la capitale française et qui occupent les places du cabaret Le Bœuf sur le toit ou les grandes brasseries de Montparnasse. Les écrivains américains de la « Génération perdue », à savoir notamment Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller et Ernest Hemingway, y côtoient les exilés qui ont fui les dictatures méditerranéennes et balkaniques. Il y a enfin les peintres qui forment ce que l'on appellera par la suite « l'École de Paris »




domingo, 16 de abril de 2017

Apolo amaba a Casandra pero, cuando ella no le correspondió, él la maldijo: su don se convertiría en una fuente continua de dolor y frustración. En algunas versiones de este mito, Apolo escupe en su boca al maldecirla; en otras versiones griegas este acto suele suponer la pérdida del don recientemente adquirido, pero el caso de Casandra es diferente. En Orestes ella promete a Apolo que se convertirá en su consorte, pero no lo cumple, por lo que desata su ira.
Aunque Casandra previó la destrucción de Troya, la muerte de Agamenón y su propia desgracia, fue incapaz de evitar estas tragedias, tal era la maldición de Apolo. Su familia creía que estaba loca y, en algunas versiones, la mantuvieron encerrada en casa o encarcelada, lo que la hace enloquecer. En otras versiones, simplemente era una incomprendida.


Una vez concluida la guerra de Troya, durante el saqueo de la ciudad, Áyax, hijo de Oileo encontró a Casandra refugiada bajo un altar dedicado a Atenea. Aunque la princesa se agarró a la sagrada estatua de la diosa, (bien fuera el Paladio, bien otra estatua distinta), en el frenesí del saqueo Áyax desoyó los ruegos, y la arrastró junto con la estatua. Según algunas fuentes la violó en ese preciso lugar; para otras fuentes, el sacrilegio cometido por Áyax había consistido en no respetar la sagrada estatua de la diosa. Este hecho condenó al guerrero, pues Poseidón, impelido por la humillada Atenea, hundió su barco causando una tormenta en las cercanías del promontorio de las rocas Giras, donde Áyax murió ahogado, o clavado a las rocas por el tridente de Poseidón según otra variante de la leyenda.
Casandra fue entregada como concubina al Rey Agamenón de Micenas. Éste ignoraba que, mientras guerreaba en Troya, su esposa Clitemnestra se había hecho amante de Egisto. Cuando Agamenón y Casandra regresaron a Micenas, Clitemnestra le pidió a su marido que anduviera por encima de una alfombra morada, el color que simboliza a los dioses. A pesar de que Casandra le avisó reiteradamente de que no lo hiciera, el Rey la ignoró y cruzó la alfombra, cometiendo así un sacrilegio. Clitemnestra y Egisto asesinaron a ambos. En algunas versiones, Casandra y Agamenón habían tenido gemelos: Telédamo y Pélope. Ambos fueron asesinados también por Egisto.


Cantú Y de Teresa
Collection

sábado, 15 de abril de 2017

Traición a Cristo en el huerto de Getsemaní 


Esta monumental obra  se refiere a una de las composiciones religiosas más importantes de la obra que ejecutara en su temprana  madures  Federico Cantú . De acuerdo con los relatos presentados en los Evangelios Sinópticos y en el Evangelio de San Juan, La Traición de Cristo tiene lugar en el Jardín de Getsemaní en el Monte de los Olivos.
 Una luna creciente, un cálido resplandor en esta dramática y nocturna escena, en la que un grupo de soldados y fariseos conducidos por Judas asaltaba el Monte para arrestar a Cristo. 
Cristo aparece como figura central dispuesto   ya amanera de composición simétrica los apóstoles de un lado izquierdo y del derecho La Traición


la escena.


Las circunstancias precisas en torno a la creación de Federico Cantú de esta composición parten del proyecto monumental de los doce vitrales representados a lo largo de la capilla de lo misioneros de Guadalupe, Actualmente se conocen tres versiones autógrafas de la Traición de Cristo de Federico Cantú. La primera está tomada de tema para placa de grabado al buril en cobre, la segunda se refiere a los temples en papel que desarrollara a manera de estarcidos y que darán forma a el formato vitral

La tercera y final es la perteneciente a la Capilla de los Misioneros , toda esta serie de obras que en su conjunto nos narran los diferentes pasajes bíblicos que Cantú ejecutara en 1957 para este recinto, sin duda esta obra es muestra de la visión estética y compositiva de la obra de Federico Cantú




Adolfo Cantú.
CYDT

jueves, 13 de abril de 2017

Federico Cantú 1907-1989

Easter, also called Pascha (Greek/Latin) or Resurrection Sunday,is a festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial after his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD
Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts which do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars which follow only the cycle of the sun; rather, its date is determined on a lunisolar calendar similar to the Hebrew calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established two rules, independence of the Jewish calendar and worldwide uniformity, which were the only rules for Easter explicitly laid down by the council. No details for the computation were specified; these were worked out in practice, a process that took centuries and generated a number of controversies. It has come to be the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or soonest after 21 March,but calculations vary.

Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar. In many languages, the words for "Easter" and "Passover" are identical or very similar. Easter customs vary across the Christian world, and include sunrise services, exclaiming the Paschal greeting, clipping the church

martes, 11 de abril de 2017

Federico Cantú 1907-1989
Escultor
En la obra de Federico Cantú podemos admirar uno de los pocos ejemplos
donde los conceptos nacionalistas se combinan con las tradiciones mesoamericanas
presentes en su obra de caballete y mural.

Uno de los símbolos escultóricos mas importantes del siglo XX
Es sin duda la “Madona del IMSS” y que dígase de paso un logro ganado con
nuestra revolución la Seguridad Social .
La familia ( madre e hijo ) cobijada por la protección del Estado Mexicano-
Representado por el símbolo patrio  , Federico se refería a ella como
“Nuestra Señora de IMSS” la idea esta mas cercana a el concepto
donde el escultor fusiona la mexicanidad de la simbología Azteca ( el águila ) transformada en símbolo patrio y la virgen y el niño , que se encuentra mas cercana a las tradiciones  devotas del pueblo de México , toda una amalgama capturada de manera colosal en una figura que se repite a lo largo y a lo ancho y en todos los rincones del país .


Bo

lunes, 10 de abril de 2017

Un día como hoy pero de 1919 murió Emiliano Zapata.

Emiliano Zapata fue uno de los líderes militares más importantes de la Revolución Mexicana y uno de sus principales símbolos. Recordamos al Caudillo del Sur como un defensor de los ideales revolucionarios.

 
Cantú llevo el tema de Zapata a la monumentalidad 
Y lo recreo con temas de caballete
Sin duda un icono mas dentro de su mexicanidad



Adolfo Cantú

Colección de Arte Cantú Y de Teresa


domingo, 9 de abril de 2017

Museo CYDT


The Dorian Sketchbook of Federico Cantú

Scenes from his Private Life




In 1929 Federico Cantú Garza, a young Mexican artist born in Nuevo León in 1907 to the writer María Luisa Garza Garza "Loreley" and the doctor and journalist Adolfo Cantú Jáuregui, fell in love in Mexico City with Luz Fabila Montes De Oca, a young woman from Amanalco, Estado de México. She was the younger sister of Alfonso Fabila Montes De Oca, a writer and anthropologist who at the time was romantically involved with the artists mother.



In Mexico City and in the midst of the Cristero War, Federico and Luz pledged their love before God and so united their lives. They then moved, together with the artists mother, to Los Angeles, California.


In the United States from 1929 to 1930, the young artist painted numerous canvases as well as several murals, and showed his work in various exhibitions. The artists wife, who in time would become a painter herself, gave birth to Ícaro Cantú Fabila in May 1929. Subsequently known as Federico, he would be the only child of their marriage.


Around 1929 and still in Los Angeles, Cantú began working on a sketchbook that he would later call the Dorian Sketchbook, in reference to the pseudonym that he used during that period of time, and in homage to The Picture of Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde. His wife bound the sketchbook in leather herself.


The marriage of Federico and Luz deteriorated before the end of 1930, not only because of disagreements between the couple, but also due to conflicts in the relationship between the painters mother and his wifes brother. The artist left for France while his wife returned with their son to Mexico.


The Dorian Sketchbook was taken to Europe among the personal effects that accompanied Cantú on his journey to Paris. Once in France, the Mexican artist continued working on the sketchbook until 1933.


In Paris, the painter lived in the Montparnasse quarter and got to know the most famous figures of bohemian Paris, all the while working on numerous drawings, oil paintings, prints and sculptures, as well as a mural, and showing his work in several galleries. 


In 1933 the future of Europe was overshadowed by the rise of Adolph Hitler to power in Germany. The same year, Federico Cantú returned home to Mexico, after having lived in the United States and in France. 


As it was impossible to move back to Mexico with all his work, the artist left many drawings, oil paintings and sculptures in his Paris atelier, which were soon lost. Among the many works that Cantú left in Paris in 1933 was the Dorian Sketchbook.


The work left in Cantus atelier was probably destroyed, thrown away, or at best, sold off cheap by his landlord. Nothing more was known of the Dorian Sketchbook for several decades.


In 2014, eighty-one years after the disappearance of the artwork left by Federico Cantú in his Montparnasse atelier, an individual contacted Adolfo Cantú Elizarrarás, the painters grandson and curator of his work, telling him that as the result of an auction purchase in Paris, he was then in possession of a sketchbook which was said to be the work of the Mexican painter. It came from a private collection in France, the owner of which bought the piece from another person, who in turn inherited it from a family member. Adolfo Cantú, overjoyed by the sudden appearance of an object that he had thought was lost, corroborated the authenticity of the piece.


The individual who purchased the Dorian Sketchbook at auction in Paris traveled to Mexico and the United States, trying to sell it. He was unable to do so and decided to put it up for auction once again.


Sebastian Mennell, an Italian-British antiques dealer living in Mexico, became aware that a European auction house was offering a sketchbook by the artist Federico Cantú: the Dorian Sketchbook. Fascinated by the beauty of the object, he purchased it and brought it back to Mexico.


In November 2016, the aforesaid European dealer decided to show the Dorian Sketchbook in an antiques fair organized in Monterrey. In this fair, the piece was acquired by a Mexican collector.
 

At that time, a native of Monterrey and great-nephew of Federico Cantú’s wife, heard that his friend the Mexican collector had acquired the Dorian Sketchbook, and asked him for the piece on temporary loan so that it could be shown in an exhibition. 


Once he obtained the Dorian Sketchbook on loan, Luz Fabila Montes de Ocas great-nephew approached his cousin Adolfo Cantú Elizarrarás, proposing that they organize an exhibition focused on this work, to be presented the painters birthplace - the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León. Adolfo Cantú Elizarrarás agreed and they began working together on the project. 


Thus, LiberArte, a Cultural Program of Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey, has the honor of presenting here in Monterrey the exhibition entitled "The Dorian Sketchbook of Federico Cantú: Scenes from his Private Life". This exhibition is made possible by a private collectors loan of the work itself, as well as the cooperation of the Federico Cantú Fabila & Elsa E. de Cantú Collection, the Cantú Y De Teresa Collection and the PFGC Collection, in addition to the support of the Centro de las Artes de Nuevo León, through its director, Mr. Jorge García Murillo, in the digitalization of the work.










In this exhibition, the Dorian Sketchbook returns to the land where the master Federico Cantú was born, as a work which forms part of the cultural heritage of Nuevo León and of Mexico itself, and which may now be enjoyed and appreciated by the entire community of Nuevo León, in the month and year in which we celebrate the 110th anniversary of the artists birth.












The Dorian Sketchbook  a work which Federico Cantú completed in Los Angeles and Paris between 1929 and 1933 and which has been lost for over eighty years  has now been discovered, restored and is now presented in Monterrey. It is an honor for LiberArte and Facultad Libre de Derecho de Monterrey to participate in this celebration of the Day of Cultural Heritage of Nuevo León, 2017.


                                                                                                     Monterrey, Nuevo Leó

                                                                                                                        March 2017
Le dimanche des Rameaux est dans le calendrier liturgique chrétien le dimanche qui précède le dimanche de Pâques et qui marque l'entrée dans la semaine sainte1.
Il commémore deux événements : d'une part, l'entrée solennelle de Jésus à Jérusalem où il fut acclamé par une foule agitant des palmes et déposant des manteaux sur son passage narrée par les quatre Évangiles ; d'autre part, la Passion du Christ et sa mort sur la croix.
Son nom liturgique est le « Dimanche des Rameaux et de la Passion du Seigneur » (dans l'actuelle forme ordinaire du rite romaindepuis les réformes qui ont suivi le concile Vatican II ; avant cette réforme et dans la forme tridentine du rite romain et après la réforme de Jean XXIII2 il s’appelait « Deuxième dimanche de la Passion ou dimanche des Rameaux », le premier dimanche de la Passion étant le dimanche précédent et ces deux dimanches formant le « Temps de la Passion », inclus dans le Carême).

viernes, 7 de abril de 2017



El Viernes de Dolores o Viernes de Pasión, es el viernes anterior al Domingo de Ramos, comprendido dentro de la última semana de la Cuaresma, conocida por la religión cristiana como Semana de Pasión. En algunas regiones es considerado como el inicio de la Semana Santa o Semana Mayor, al iniciarse en éste las procesiones.

Los cristianos (especialmente los católicos romanos y los católicos ortodoxos) manifiestan su fervor religioso en la celebración de los Dolores de Nuestra Señora, incluyendo por ejemplo en la liturgia de la Misa la secuencia del Stabat Mater.

En algunos lugares se le denomina Viernes de Concilio, el cual es tomado como día de ayuno y abstinencia, quedando proscrito el consumo de carnes.

Federico Cantú
Dolorosa 1938
Cantú Y de Teresa Collection


Esta antigua celebración mariana tuvo mucho arraigo en toda Europa y América, y aún hoy muchas de las devociones de la Santísima Virgen del tiempo de Semana Santa, tienen su día festivo o principal durante el Viernes de Dolores, que conmemora los sufrimientos de la Madre de Cristo durante la Semana Santa.

El Concilio Vaticano II consideró, dentro de las diversas modificaciones al calendario litúrgico, suprimir las fiestas consideradas "duplicadas", esto es, que se celebren dos veces en un mismo año; por ello la fiesta primigenia de los Dolores de Nuestra Señora el viernes antes del Domingo de Ramos fue suprimida, siendo reemplazada por la moderna fiesta de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores el 15 de septiembre. Aun así, en la tercera edición del Misal Romano (2000), hay un recuerdo especial a los Dolores de la Santísima Virgen en la celebración ferial de ese día, introducida por San Juan Pablo II.

La Santa Sede y las normas del Calendario Litúrgico contemplan que, en los lugares donde se halle fervorosamente fecunda la devoción a los Dolores de María y en sus calendarios propios sea tenida como fiesta o solemnidad, este día puede celebrarse sin ningún inconveniente con todas las prerrogativas que le son propias. (Cf. Tabla de los días Litúrgicos, Misal Romano)

jueves, 6 de abril de 2017
























Kei Viti
Malanesian Images
Jena Charlot          

Cantú Y de Teresa     Collection

 


Jean Charlot was born in France in the 1880’s. He had Aztec ancestors and moved with his mother to Mexico after studying at the Ecole de Beaux arts in Paris and serving as an artillery officer at the end of WWI. He quickly established himself in the art community of Mexico City in the very early 1920’s and befriended Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Orozco, main figures in the Mexican Mural movement of the early twenties that quickly spread to the USA.

Charlot and the others visited the USA and taught – mostly in New York City – the true fresco technique, which Charlot taught to the other Mexican muralists. In 1947, Jean Charlot moved his family to Colorado Springs, Colorado to take over as head of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Art School from which Boardman Robinson had just retired. He also taught at the private school for boys in Colorado Springs, The Fountain Valley School.
Qaravi Yaqona: Kava ceremony 






Charlot resigned over a dispute involving tenure and other differences of opinion with the administration of the Art Center. He moved to Hawaii to teach at the University and remained there for about thirty years until his death in 1979. He won many awards for his work.
He has written many scholarly essays and books and lectured and taught at a host of schools. He is the person who singlehandedly resurrected the work of Jose Guadalupe Posada, the great Mexican engraver of popular art – especially the “Day of the Dead” skeleton figures that are so well known today.


Also living in Paris was Jean Charlot's great-uncle, Eugène Goupil, a collector of Mexican works of art. Jean, who began to draw around age two, grew up surrounded by pre-Hispanic antiquities. Years later (1926-28) he would be commissioned as staff artist for the Carnegie Institution expedition to Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, and would publish books and articles on Mexican art and produce paintings, graphics and murals with Mexican themes.




Charlot was educated at the Lyeé Condorcet (where he won the French national scholastic boxing championship in the medium weight division in 1912) and studied informally at the école des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Soon after the onset of World War I and the failure of Henri Charlot's import-export firm, which did business primarily with Germany, the family, in much reduced financial circumstances, moved to the village of St. Mandé. Henri died shortly thereafter.



In the French countryside near his home and during travels in Brittany, the teenage Charlot painted small landscapes in oil on paper and pursued what was to become a lifelong interest in folk imagery. Drafted into the army near the end of the war, he became an artillery lieutenant. An officer in the Senegalese Troops, Charlot was given the command when his predecessors had been killed in battle. He was young and considered expendable. While encamped at Sézanne, he began drawings for the fifteen print woodcut series Chemin de Croix, Way of the Cross. Charlot entered Germany with the French army on Christmas Day 1918. During the French occupation of the Rhineland Charlot, bivouacked between Mannheim and Cologne, had the opportunity to view paintings by 16th century German masters, especially Stephan Lochner and Mathias Grünewald which ". . .were a big influence, but," he remarked, "I always go back to folk art" (In Morse 1976:viii). 
The Chemin de Croix was cut in Landau, Bavaria, in 1920. "The stations were large woodcuts on pearwood, cut in part with hammer and chisel, and closer in technique to carving than to engraving" (Charlot 1972, vol. I:228). The portfolio was printed in an edition of fifteen at Chaumontel, France, after Charlot was discharged from the army. In 1920 Chemin de Croix was shown at an exhibition of liturgical arts held at the Louvre, along with three designs for liturgical textiles and two friezes in watercolor (1/10th scale) for decoration of a new church in a Paris suburb that Charlot claimed was his "first serious attempt at mural painting" ([1963] 1967:178). 




In his teens, Charlot had become one of a Catholic group that called itself Gilde Notre-Dame ("Parisian adolescents (who) used to gather in a crypt") made up of sculptors, stained glass makers, embroiderers and decorators (1972, vol. I:285). The resumption after the war of what Charlot calls his "career as a French liturgical artist" was cut short by the cancellation of the commission for the church mural just after he had completed the scale drawings. This "first heartbreak at the realization that a born mural painter is helpless without a wall. . ." ([1963] 1967:178) was one of the factors that precipitated a journey to Mexico in 1920. 





Charlot comments, "On this first trip to Mexico I did nothing at all. I was stuck aesthetically in 18th century France." Later he wrote: "My life in France was on the whole rational, national, obeying this often heard dictum that a Frenchman is a man who ignores geography. There were though, simultaneously, un-French elements at work. Russian, sephardim, Aztec ancestors, warmed my blood to adventure. In art, I accepted as part of my patrimony, the monstrous chubby forms of Indian idols, the squatty masked heroes of Mexican cosmogony, without letting go a whit of those other models, Poussin's Eliezer and Rebecca, and Ingres' Apotheosis of Homer" (Charlot, 1954:103). After a brief return to Paris where he exhibited paintings, including L'Amitié, in the 1921 Salon d'Automne, Charlot was again off to Mexico, "for good," this time with his mother. 




In the article, "Mexico of the Poor," written in 1922 in French and translated by Diego Rivera into Spanish (published in a slightly different version in English in Mexican Life, March 1926), Charlot records some of his early impressions of Mexico: "At six o'clock in the morning, I was in the streets. Automobiles and ladies were still asleep, and the true features of the town emerged. Beautiful beings people the street like Ladies of Guadalupe innumerable. They move noiselessly, feet flat to the ground, antique beauty come to life. The wealthier quarters are as empty and soiled as a music hall at noon, buy everywhere else, among those low-lying houses, cubic and freshly daubed, processions are staged. At first glance the crowd is the color of dust. Flesh and cloth, both worn out with use, melt into this grey which is the very livery of humbleness. Eye and mind soon learn to focus, and this race, its confidence won, attests to its beauty through fabrics, its straw, its flesh" (Charlot 1972, vol. II:99). 




In the Mexico City suburb, Coyoacán, Charlot sometimes painted at the open-air school, an annex of the Academy of San Carlos. He shared a studio with Fernando Leal, one of the founders (with Rivera, Siqueiros and Guerrero) of the Syndicate of Revolutionary Painters, Sculptors and Engravers of Mexico, dedicated, according to their Resolutions, to "do work useful to Mexico's popular classes in their struggle, meanwhile producing an art aesthetically and technically great" ([1963] 1967:243). 
Charlot produced a series of small woodcuts and oils, primarily portraits. Many of his contemporaries in Mexico -- David Alfaro Siqueiros, Manuel Martinez Pintao, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Xavier Guerrero, Nacho Asúnsolo, Henrietta Shore, Sergei Eisenstein, Anita Brenner, Edward Weston and Tina Modotti --are represented in portraits by Charlot. 
For two years Charlot concentrated on mural paintings in fresco. He had become an assistant to Diego Rivera, the leading figure of the Mexican socio-political school of painting, who in 1922 was working at the Escuela Preparatoria (the National Preparatory School in Mexico City) on an encaustic titled Creation. A month after beginning at the Preparatoria Charlot started work on a mural of his own. In The Mexican Mural Renaissance, Charlot wrote that in Paris he had fallen in love with the texture, transparency, and lack of "cuisine" (lack of clichés or technical trickery) of the portable frescoes of Marcel Lenoir and had decided from the first to do his Mexican mural in true fresco. "I borrowed from Diego the French treatise of Paul Baudoin, founder of the Fontainebleau fresco school, and at the same time cultivated and probed the ways of Mexican masons and Mexican mortars, an easy feat in the Preparatoria building where a wing was still in the process of construction" ([1963] 1967:181). Charlot's The Massacre in the Main Temple, 14' x 26', is the first work of the twentieth century Mexican mural movement completed in true fresco. [1]
Diego Rivera and his assistants, nicknamed "Dieguitos" (little Diegos), were next commissioned to paint the walls of the Ministry of Education in Mexico City, an enormous building with two courts. Charlot trained masons in the preparation of walls for fresco and instructed the other artists in technique. Rivera began in the ground floor "Court of Labor," and the second floor "Court of the Fiestas" was consigned to Xavier Guerrero, Amado de la Cueva and Charlot to decorate; in Charlot's words ". . .a first try at communal painting" (1972, vol. I:391). Rivera eventually took over this court too, and all but three frescoes are his. Charlot painted nine decorative shields and three murals (each 16 1/3' x 7 2/3') of Mexican folk scenes: Cargadores (Burden Bearers), Lavanderas (Washerwomen), and Danza de los Listones (Dance of the Ribbons). The latter was destroyed by Rivera in 1924 to make space for his triple panel composition Market Place. 
The following year Charlot completed a mural, Shield of the National University of Mexico, with Eagle and Condor, at the Pan American Library. In 1923 he published his first article on Mexican art, on the work of the sculptor Manuel Martínez Pintao (El Democrata, August 5, 1923), and participated in an independent group exhibition in New York, his first in the United States. 
In what is sometimes called his "dark period," Charlot produced more than four dozen small easel paintings (c. 10" x 14") in oil on canvas of Mexican subjects. Several of these subdued works were studies of a Mexican Indian woman, Luciana (Luz) Jiménez, a friend and favorite model. Luz instructed him in the Aztec language, Náhuatl, and furthered his interest and knowledge of Mexican folk culture. He created woodcuts for publication in periodicals such as Irradiador (Enlightener), and to illustrate the poems of German-born Mexican List Arzubide, Esquina: Poemas (Mexico City: D. F. Libreria, 1923), and Manuel Maples Arce, Urbe: Super-poema bolchevique en 5 cantos (Mexico City: Andres Botas & Hijo, 1924). The latter author was a good friend and leader of the Estridentismo (lit. "strident") group of avant-garde writers and poets. Charlot became secretary of this organization. He also introduced some symbolist French poetry into Mexico. From 1924-26 Charlot was art editor of the influential periodical, Mexican Folk-ways, publishing such articles as "Aesthetics of Indian Dance." 
In 1925, Charlot in the company of Frances Toor, Anita Brenner and Luz Jiménez' family, made a pilgrimage to Chalma, a Catholic shrine at a pre-Hispanic cave-site sacred to the Indian God of the Caves, ". . .a very long trek --three days more or less from Milpa Alta, with two nights on the way" (In Morse 1976:157). Charlot drew profound personal and artistic inspiration from the folk-religious activities he observed on this pilgrimage. Works from the mid-1920s include several paintings and graphics on Chalma and other Indian themes. He illustrated several books by Anita Brenner, a native of Mexico and the author of socio-cultural histories of the country. Charlot "discovered" the popular artist José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), and produced the study, "A Precursor of the Modern Art Movement, the Printmaker Posada," which was published in Revista de Revistas, August 30, 1925. Also in 1925 Charlot exhibited in the Mexican section at the Pan American Union in Los Angeles. The following year, there was an exhibition of his paintings at the Art Center in New York. 
An opportunity to broaden his knowledge of Mayan history, culture and customs came about when Charlot served as staff artist of the Carnegie Institution expedition to the archeological site Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, by Earl Morris, Jean Charlot and Anne Axtell Morris (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution Publication 406) was published May 21, 1931. Charlot later noted it was "perhaps the last such archeological publication to be illustrated mainly with drawings instead of photographs" (In Morse 1976:46). Two years later, he completed a series of lithographs with the printer George Miller, the most ambitious of which, Great Builders I and Great Builders II, are an imaginative reconstruction of the building of the temples at Chichén Itzá. Charlot's archeological renderings and descriptions were also included in A Preliminary Study of the Ruins of Coba, Quintana Roo, Mexico, by J. Eric Thompson, Harry E.D. Pollock and Jean Charlot (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, Publication no. 242, March 1932). 
After the completion of the Yucatán project in 1928 Charlot and his mother moved to New York where he rented a small apartment on the top floor of 42 Union Square from the artist Morris Kantor. The apartment was unheated, which probably contributed to the death of his mother from pneumonia in January, 1929. In New York Charlot's work was shown in the Mexican government-sponsored group exhibition at the Art Center in 1928, and in a retrospective at the Art Students League in 1930. He also participated in Mexican group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Fogg Museum, and


 



illustrated The Book of Christopher Columbus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930) by the poet Paul Claudel, whom Charlot first knew in Washington while Claudel was French ambassador to the United States from 1927-33. 
On a brief trip to Mexico in 1931, Charlot met his future wife, Dorothy Zohmah Day, who was visiting Ione Robinson, a fellow art student on a Guggenheim scholarship in Mexico. Returning to New York, Charlot taught at the Art Students League in 1931-32 and painted portraits and Mexican and religious scenes. Illustrations of his work in various media from 1924-31 appeared in Jean Charlot, Peintres Nouveaux, August 1932, with an introduction by Paul Claudel. Edward Weston, by Merle Armitage and Jean Charlot (New York: E Weyhe) was published in 1932.
Charlot's greatest legacy may be his murals in fresco. Among these are: 
Hopi Snake Dance and Preparing Anti-Venom Serum (25' x 25'), Administration Building, Arizona State University, Tempe (1951); Fresco Class in Action (11' x 25'), and Mestrovic's Studio (9' x 25') in the Student Lounge, O'Shaughnessy Building, University of Notre Dame (1955 and 1956). Also, at St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, Charlot executed fourteen panels symbolizing the Fine Arts (each 3' x 3') for O'Laughlin Auditorium (1955) and The Fire of Creation (5' x 6') in Moreau Hall (1956). Psalm of the Good Shepherd (c. 16' x 24'), was painted for the Church of the Good Shepherd, Lincoln Park, Michigan (1955); Inspiration of the Artist (14' x 16'), for the Des Moines, Iowa, Art Center (1956) and Calvary (34' x 32') for St. Leonard Center, Centerville, Ohio (1958). Fresco murals for St. Benedict's Abbey, Atchison, Kansas (1959), are: Trinity and Episodes of Benedictine Life (21' x 29'), Monastic Chapel; St. Joseph's Workshop (4 1/2' x 6 1/2'), Brother's Chapel; and Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Four Apparitions (9 3/4' x 12') for the Abbey Crypt. Also in 1959 Christ as the Vine, with Saints (11' x 15') was painted for the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, Rock Hill, South Carolina.  Village Fiesta (9' x 45'), for the Shaw Dormitory at Syracuse University was accompanied by a related film (1960). On the ceiling and apsidal wall of the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, Farmington, Michigan, Charlot painted the frescoes Our Lady of Sorrows and The Ascension of Our Lord (c. 1300 sq. ft.) in 1961. In 1963 Charlot made a trip to Fiji and painted Black Christ and Worshipers (10' x 30') over the main altar of St. Francis Xavier Church at Naiserelagi, and the side panels St. Joseph's Workshop and The Annunciation (each 10' x 12').






Residents of Hawai'i enjoy viewing many of Charlot's fresco murals in locations throughout the State. Early Contacts of Hawai'i with the Outer World (11' x 67') was painted in 1951-52 at the Waikiki branch of Bishop Bank. (This later became First National and then First Hawaiian Bank.) In 1966, when the building was destroyed, this mural was divided into smaller panels. Charlot executed Commencement (10' x 36'), on the second floor of Bachman Hall, University of Hawai'i (1953); Chief's Canoe (8' x 20'), Catamaran Cafe, Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel, Honolulu (painted in 1956; since removed from the wall); Compassionate Christ (10' x 7'), St. Catherine's Church, Kapa'a, Kaua'i (1958); Inspiration, Study, Creation (15' x16'), Jefferson Hall, East-West Center, Honolulu (1967); Battle of the Malinches (4' x 8'), Maryknoll Elementary School, Honolulu (1967); Angels in Adoration (10' x 19'), Grace Episcopal Church, Ho'olehua, Moloka'i (1967). In 1974, Charlot painted the fresco mural The Relation of Man and Nature in Old Hawai'i (23' x 104') at Leeward Community College, O'ahu and, in 1978 another fresco for Maryknoll Elementary School, Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well (5' x 4').


Lynton Richards Kistler

Printer.  Born in Los Angeles, CA on Aug. 30, 1897.  Kistler's studio was born from his
father's lithotype studio of 30 years.  In the late 1920s he began exploring lithography as an art medium.  With artist  Jean Charlot, he began producing color lithography in the early 1930s. For the next 40 years he collaborated with Feitelson, Shoppe, Sheets, Landacre and other artists in printing the finest quality color lithography. Kistler died in Orange County, CA on Nov. 9, 1993. 

Exh: Stendahl Gallery (LA), 1933; Moss Gallery (LA), 1997.

Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
City Directory; Journal of the Print World, Fall 1997.