JUAN O'GORMAN Graphite/Paper DEAD REVOLUTIONARY 1969
Large graphite drawing on heavy wove paper by the noted Irish/Mexican artist Juan O'Gorman. This impressive work shows the masters talents in the style that was so characteristic of the Mexican Modernist movement. In the foreground lies a dead revolutionary, wearing the traditional uniform of the Soldiers who fought for Pancho Villa, while his boots, a prized commodity, appear to have been stolen. The background shows a peaceful view of a landscape in central Mexico. A biplane flies by pulling a sign that reads: "Otra vez el viento espanta la hojarasca de los sueños, sacude el alba de mis versos sobre los corazones enemigos, y el tacto helado de los siglos me acaricia en la frente, mientras que la angustia del silencio corre por las entrañas de los nombres queridos." (Again the wind scares away the withering of dreams, shakes the dawn of my verses over the enemy's hearts, and the freezing touch of centuries caresses my forehead as the anguish of silence runs through the core of beloved names.)
Catalogue #3032 Size: 36 x 46 in (91.5 x 117 cms) Estimate: $60,000.00 - $80,000.00 Prices in USD
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Juan O'Gorman (1905 - 1982)
O'Gorman was born on July 6, 1905, in Coyoacán, a suburb of Mexico City, to Cecil Crawford O'Gorman, and Irish painter and a Mexican mother. In the 1920s he studied architecture at the famed Academia de San Carlos. He became a well known architect. and under the influence of Le Corbusier introduced modern functionalist architecture to Mexico City. As he matured, O'Gorman turned away from strict functionalism and worked to develop an organic architecture, combining the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright with traditional Mexican constructions.
An important early commission was for a house and studio for painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, built in 1927. As he worked on the project, he developed his passion for drawing and painting, with the help and influence Rivera although he inherited his father's technique of tempera on wood. His paintings often treated Mexican history, landscape, and legends and were mostly commissioned by the lucky few who were in his circle. Soon he became a recognizable figure in the art world of Mexico City. He painted various murals like the ones in the Independence Room in Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle, and the Gertrudis Gonzalez Bocanegra Library in Patzcuaro. Perhaps his best known work is the Byzantine style colored-stone mosaic that decorates the Central Library of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico which he finished in 1951.
