Carlos Mrida – Biography of Carlos Mrida

Carlos Merida He was born in Guatemala on December 2, 1891, into a Quetzaltenango family, with a Mayan and Zapotec heritage that was often an inspiration in his art. He began to study music (his early passion) but, having hearing problems due to illness, he then switched to the visual arts. He grew up in Quetzaltenango and after graduating from high school in 1909, he moved to Guatemala City where he began making contacts among the intelligentsia, including Jaime Sabartés (Pablo Picasso’s biographer) and the painter Carlos Valenti.

Merida studied at the Institute of Arts and Crafts of Guatemala City. In 1910 he accompanied his friend Valenti to Paris, where he met Picasso. However, just 4 months after arriving, Valenti shot himself dead, a fact that affected him greatly. After traveling through Europe, he returned to Guatemala in 1914 and had his first exhibition.

In 1919 he moved to Mexico and married Dalilla Gálvez (with whom he remained married until his death in 1974), but because the marriage was against the wishes of his family, he established his home in Mexico where he had an active participation. at the Mexican School of Mural Painting.

In 1922 he worked with Diego Rivera to paint the murals of the Bolivar amphitheater in Mexico City, and together with Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros he founded the Union of Workers, Technicians, Painters and Sculptors. His first mural as a solo artist was his 1923 commission to paint the Children’s Library of the Ministry of Public Education (“Little Red Riding Hood and the Four Elements“).

In 1927, after another period in Paris, getting acquainted with Paul Klee and Joan Miró, he abandoned his figurative style to become one of the first non-figurative artists in Mexico. Upon his return from Paris in 1929, he was appointed director of the gallery of the National Theater of Mexico.

His later works formed a link to the Mayan world with geometric elements. He integrated the indigenous “papel amate” (bark wood paper) into his paintings. His mural for him Presidente Juárez building (1952) represented a series of myths of Mexican creation.

1940 saw his participation in the International Surrealist Exposition that took place in Mexico and in 1942 he went to teach at the North Texas State Teachers College in Denton (now the University of North Texas).

In 1949, Merida began to investigate the integration of different arts and, starting in the 50s, his art began to show a constructivist tone, which is demonstrated in murals and mosaics (often with materials such as glass) such as those made for the Alianza Insurance building in Mexico City 1953) and for the Guatemala City City Council (1956).

His later career found him dividing his time between commissions in Mexico and in his native Guatemala, with occasional forays elsewhere (for example a glass wall at the civic center in San Antonio, Texas).

In addition to art installations such as murals and mosaics, Merida continued painting on canvas and also producing silk fabrics and lithographs, among which are Albums as Three Motives (1936) and Indigenous Costumes of Guatemala.

Mérida’s first love was music and she never lost contact with that world; helped found the School of Dance in the Ministry of Public Education (in Mexico) and later became its director. His visual art was said to be “musical”, with series of paintings varying on a theme as composers do on music.

His second daughter Ana Mérida became an important Mexican dancer and choreographer.