Luis Ortiz Monasterio (August 23, 1906 in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

– February 16, 1990 in Mexico City) was a Mexican

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

noted for his monumental works such as the Monumento a la Madre and the Nezahualcoyotl Fountain in Chapultepec Park. His work was recognized in 1967 with the Premio Nacional de Artes and was a founding member of the Academia de Artes.

Life

Luis Ortiz Monasterio (full name Luis Ortiz Monasterio del Campillo) was born in Mexico City, losing his father the year he was born. In 1920, he spent a year at a teacher’s training course at the Escuela Normal para Maestros while studying drawing at night at the Academy of San Carlos. He later registered as a matriculated student, specializing in engraving, drawing and sculpture. Because of the family’s economic situation, he went to Los Angeles, where he worked and studied, coming into contact with the works of

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (; ; 12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a u ...

, Brâncuși and Wilhelm Lehmbruck. In 1927, he participated in a workshop at the Escuela Libre de Escultura y Talla Directa founded by Guillermo Ruiz at the

San Ildefonso College Colegio de San Ildefonso, currently is a museum and cultural center in Mexico City, considered to be the birthplace of the Mexican muralism movement. San Ildefonso began as a prestigious Jesuit boarding school, and after the Reform War it gain ...

, which promoted sculpting Mexican themes and values into native rock. For the next several years, he lived in the United States and Mexico, before permanently settling in Mexico City. In addition to art, he was an author of books and monographs, which generally contained philosophic and poetic references. Ortiz Monasterio retired from his sculpting career in 1989, dying a year later at the age of 83 in Mexico City from multiple natural causes. His body was cremated at the

Panteón de Dolores The Panteón Civil de Dolores is the largest cemetery in Mexico and contains the Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres (). It is located on ''Avenida Constituyentes'' in the Miguel Hidalgo, D.F., Miguel Hidalgo borough of Mexico City, between sections ...

in Mexico City.

Career

With a career that spanned over sixty years, Ortiz Monasterio is one of the main figures of Mexican sculpture in the 20th century. He is one of few to be active during the dominance of the Mexican muralism movement and one of fewer of the century to be remembered. The artist began his career in 1927 as a drawing teacher at the Escuela de Maestros Contructores of the Secretaría de Educación Pública, after returned from studies in the United States. He went on to be a long-time teacher of the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas ENAP from 1939 to 1962 and taught at La Esmeralda as well. In 1928, Ortiz Monasterio returned to Los Angeles to sculpt full-time, having his first individual exhibition at the Book Shop Gallery and a later one at Gump’s Art Gallery in San Francisco. In the 1930s he created a number of sculptures which made him known for their originality of form and texture: ''El soldado herido'' (1932), ''La Victoria'' (1935), ''El nacimiento de Apolo'' (1936) and ''La Venus'' (1937) . He had two shows at the Galería de Arte Mexicano an at UNAM in 1935 and 1936. In 1946 he participated in the International Sculpture Exhibition at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

, which acquired a work called ''Cabeza de mujer'' (1945). Another piece was acquired by 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 ...

in New York. His success in United States brought him back to Mexico, receiving commissions for monumental works. The first of these was El llamado de al revolución in stone, carved between 1932 and 1934. The next in a similar technique, was El esclavo, which has since been lost. Later works include the reliefs for the Benemérita Escuela Nacional de Maestros, the Monumento a los defensores de la ciudad de Puebla (1943), the Monumento a la Madre in Parque Sullivan (1948) the Nezahualcoyotl Fountain in Chapultepec Park, the pórtico for the open air theater of the Plaza Cívica of the Unidad Independencia house complex and the Tigres y Águilas sculpture at the Centro Medico Nacional of IMSS(1963). He also created sculptures for cities such as

Xalapa Xalapa or Jalapa (, ), officially Xalapa-Enríquez (), is the capital city of the Mexico, Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Veracruz and the name of the surrounding municipality. In 2020 census the city reported a population of 443,063 ...

and

Acapulco Acapulco de Juárez (), commonly called Acapulco ( , ; ), is a city and Port of Acapulco, major seaport in the Political divisions of Mexico, state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mexico City. Located on a deep, semicirc ...

. The first award for his work was a prize in sculpture from the Secretaría de Educación Pública in 1946. In 1967 he received the Premio Nacional de Artes in sculpture. In 1968 he was a founding member of the Academia de Artes and later received a diploma and medal for his teaching career at ENAP. Posthumous tributes include one in 1992 at the OMR Gallery, an exhibition in 1992 at Louis Stern Galleries; and a retrospective in 2011 at the Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo. However, since his career, about fifteen percent of his work is missing or destroyed and much of the rest is in deteriorated condition, especially the monumental works.

Artistry

Ortiz Monasterio is of the generation of Mexican sculptors which includes Oliverio Martínez, Francisco Marín, Juan Cruz Reyes, Federico Cantú, Federico Canessi and Carlos Bracho, which adopted elements of

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

and

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, using figures from the working class and indigenous populations. His artistic style is characterized by the use of classical and geometric elements, along with pre Hispanic influence. There is also influence from an artist named Ivan Mestrock, a Yugoslav artist whose works he saw in art magazines from Europe. In his works, he applied concepts from

numerology Numerology (known before the 20th century as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, ...

and Pythagorism along with metaphysical concepts from the Aztec and Mayan cultures. His work can be divided into two types. The first are monumental public works with historical themes, such as the Nezahualcoyotl Fountain in Chapultepec (1956) and the Plaza Cívica de la Unidad Indepedencia (1962). His smaller works often consists of sensual human forms as well as those with a mechanical feel.

References

External links

* * * Luis Ortiz Monasteri
Cantú Y de Teresa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ortiz Monasterio, Luis 1906 births 1990 deaths Artists from Mexico City 20th-century Mexican sculptors Academic staff of the National Autonomous University of Mexico Recipients of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin Academic staff of Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" Members of the Academia de Artes