Artist Maria Izquierdo

Mexican Painter and Contemporary of Frida Kahlo

Aug 17, 2008 Meg Nola

Although not as well-known as Frida Kahlo, Maria Izquierdo's vividly unique paintings make her one of Mexico's premier 20th century artists.

Born in San Juan de los Lagos in Jalisco, Mexico, Maria Izquierdo’s year of birth is sometimes listed as 1906, yet more often as 1902. As a teenager, her strict grandparents convinced her to agree to an arranged marriage, and within a few years she had two children. When Maria and her family moved to Mexico City in 1923, she found herself drawn to the creatively exciting culture she was encountering there, and by 1928 she had left her military officer husband to fully focus on the study of art.

Early Studies and Rufino Tamayo

Initially, Izquierdo enrolled at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, but she had an instinctive resistance to too much formal training and gave up the classes soon after. She had, however, met painter Rufino Tamayo through her coursework, and the two became lovers and shared studio space for several years afterward. Tamayo respected Izquierdo’s need to keep naïve elements in her paintings, and they both believed strongly in Mexico as a rich and diverse source of inspiration. Tamayo was said to have helped Izquierdo to develop her talents in the medium of watercolors and to have influenced her use of certain tones and shades. Nonetheless, Tamayo eventually left Izquierdo for a younger student who would ultimately become his wife. This ending perhaps prompted an Izquierdo painting done around that time, showing a woman gazing into a mirror but seeing nothing within the glass.

An Open Window

Often overshadowed by her iconic fellow countrywoman Frida Kahlo, Izquierdo actually was the first female Mexican artist to have her own show of work beyond Mexico, with her 1930 exhibit at Manhattan’s Art Center. Like Kahlo, Izquierdo liked to be photographed or appear publicly in native Mexican clothing, and while her painting was praised by artist and muralist Diego Rivera, again like Kahlo, Izquierdo found Rivera to be an overly domineering force. Rivera continually asserted that art's main purpose was its potential for socio-political influence, and he did not care for art for art’s sake or intensely personal expression. Izquierdo countered:

I avoid…political themes because they do not have expressive or poetic strength, and I think that, in the world of art, a painting is an open window to human imagination.

She held firm to her beliefs, but as a result was later denied a major mural commission from the Palacio Nacional of Mexico City due to Rivera’s influence and claim that she was not qualified to paint it.

Style and Legacy

Izquierdo was fond of expanding upon Mexican colonial and naïve art styles, and recreations of scenes from her childhood. Her use of the Virgin Mary figure most likely stemmed from her hometown, which has a shrine to Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos that draws nearly as much attention as the famed Virgin of Guadalupe. Izquierdo also portrayed fascinating circus images, and these circus paintings particularly capture her skill at contrasting dualities of bright color before a backdrop of displacement or sadness. Her work drew the attention of French poet Antonin Artaud when he visited Mexico in 1936, and she eventually became friends with Artaud and reflected aspects of his own surrealist attitudes.

The 1940s began as a promising decade for Izquierdo, with fine work done in the area of portraits and still-lifes. But by 1949 she was plagued by health problems, including a stroke which led to partial paralysis. A painting done before the stroke, Sueño y presentimiento, was one of Izquierdo’s last great efforts, depicting a premonitory dream of her holding her own decapitated head. Soon afterward, she suffered the attack which would limit her ability -- and essentially cause the decapitation, or cutting off connection between -- her mental and physical processes. Maria Izquierdo died in Mexico City in December 1955.

Sources

Latin American Art of The Twentieth Century, Edward Lucie-Smith (Thames & Hudson, 1993)

Painter on a Pendulum -- Holland Cotter, The New York Times

The copyright of the article Artist Maria Izquierdo in Modern Art History is owned by Meg Nola. Permission to republish Artist Maria Izquierdo in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Maria Izquierdo

Tightrope Walker (Maria Izquierdo, 1932)

The Open Cupboard (Maria Izquierdo, 1946)