Federico Castellón ( – ) was a
Spanish American painter, sculptor, printmaker, and illustrator of children's books.
Biography
Castellón was born on
Alhabia, Almeria
Alhabia is a municipality of Almería (province), Almería province, in Spain.
Demographics
See also
*List of municipalities in Almería
References
External links
*Alhabia
- Diputación Provincial de Almería
Municipalities in the Pro ...
, Spain, studied in
Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
and Paris and settled in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, New York.
Federico Cristencia de Castellón y Martínez, better known as Federico Castellón, was a surrealist printmaker, illustrator, painter, and sculptor. He was born in Almeria, Spain in 1914. With his family, he immigrated in 1921 to the United States. They resided in Brooklyn, New York.
A fundamentally self-taught artist, Castellón began sketching at an early age. He took advantage of his family's relocation and visited the museums of New York. Consequently, his influences ranged from Old Masters to the modern artists of his day, including
Giorgio de Chirico
Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( ; ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. His ...
,
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
,
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...
, and
Georges Rouault
Georges-Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris - 13 February 1958, Paris) was a French painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism.
Childhood and education
Rouault was born into a poor famil ...
.
Castellón attended Erasmus High School, where his teachers recognized his draughtsmanship. After graduation, he completed a mural for the school based on the subject of arts and sciences. The mural was informed by Castellón's interest in the modern European movements, and it attracted critical attention when exhibited at Raymond & Raymond Galleries in New York before it was installed permanently in the school.
About this time, Castellón was introduced to
Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art.
Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...
, who had an international reputation and was painting murals for
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commerce, commercial buildings covering between 48th Street (Manhattan), 48th Street and 51st Street (Manhattan), 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The 14 original Art De ...
. The older artist took an interest in the young man's work and brought Castellón's drawings to the attention of the director of the Weyhe Gallery in New York, who subsequently gave the eighteen-year-old Castellón his first solo exhibition.
In 1934, with Rivera's help, Castellón was awarded a four-year fellowship, sponsored by the Spanish Government, to travel throughout Europe to study painting and printmaking. During this same period, Castellón began to exhibit his work in museums in France and Spain.
In 1935, Castellón participated in the Paris Exhibition of Spanish Artists that included Pablo Picasso,
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic g ...
, and
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...
.
In 1937, Castellón returned to New York and began experimenting with the medium of lithography, using this medium to create illustrations for
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...
's allegorical tale, "
The Masque of Red Death". Over the years, Castellón's work as an illustrator would eventually include ''
Bulfinch's Mythology'', ''The Story of Marco Polo'', and ''
The Little Prince
''The Little Prince'' (, ) is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published po ...
''.
In 1940, Castellón received the first of two
Guggenheim fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
s. His work continued to attract attention as he was included in exhibitions at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
,
the Whitney Museum of American Art, and
the Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park. Its collection, stewarded by 11 curatoria ...
.
Castellón became an American citizen in 1943. During WWII, he was with the OSS and assigned to the Burma theater. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, his work was informed by his travels abroad: to China with the U.S. Army; to Italy on his second Guggenheim fellowship; and to Paris and Madrid, where he moved his family for a brief period during which he undertook commissions from American periodicals, including The Epic of Man series for ''LIFE'' magazine.
In 1949, he was commissioned by the Print Club of Albany for its annual print.
Although his formal education ended with high school, Castellón taught at
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University (TC) is the graduate school of education affiliated with Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Founded in 1887, Teachers College has been a part of Columbia University since ...
,
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...
, and
Queens College
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the New York City borough of Queens. Part of the City University of New York system, Queens College occupies an campus primarily located in Flushing.
Queens College was established in 1937 and offe ...
. He was elected to membership in the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...
in New York, was awarded a First Prize from the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
, and he was a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists.
Castellón died in 1971. A retrospective of his prints was held at the Allied Artists of America in 1978. In 1982, a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at Anderson & Anderson Master Prints (Loveland, Colorado). In 2004, his prints and paintings were exhibited at Emil Nelson Gallery (Denver, Colorado). In early 2010, Castellón's work was exhibited at the Kalamazoo Institute, along with the graphic work of
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...
.
Although Castellón worked in virtually every media, he remains best known for his early graphic work, particularly his lithographs and etchings, media in which he became a master. His prints and drawings of the early 1930s are the first examples of Surrealism created by an American; a considerable feat because Castellón produced these highly original works not only before his travels abroad, but before the seminal exhibition "Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism" at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
References
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castellon, Federico
1914 births
1971 deaths
20th-century American painters
American male painters
20th-century Spanish painters
20th-century American male artists
Spanish male painters
20th-century American illustrators
People from Almería
Spanish emigrants to the United States
American surrealist artists
Spanish surrealist artists
Teachers College, Columbia University faculty