MEXICO AND THE MEXICANS
Mexico and Mexicans in the Kaluz Collection is our museum’s inaugural exhibition, one which offers a representative selection of our collection. As they visit our galleries, the public will be able to appreciate how a cultural legacy is built, through a Mexican collector’s taste for figurative painting. Moreover, this exhibition highlights the talent and gaze of Mexico’s most renowned artists, as well as those who are lesser known; from natural and urban landscapes, to the transcendence of our traditions, religious customs and social practices, it offers diverse interpretations of what it means to be Mexican. The Mexico this exhibition seeks to reveal is a plural and diverse country that encompasses a broad definition of who Mexicans are, including not only those who were born here but the ones who chose to make it their home, as well as foreign artists who found a country that opened its doors to them during their travels, however brief or long. Pelegrín Clavé, José María Velasco, Joaquín Clausell, Gerardo Murillo “Dr. Atl”, Ángel Zárraga, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Raúl Anguiano, are among the prominent signatures one can find in our collection. Women are also represented through the brushstrokes of María Izquierdo, Angelina Beloff, Cordelia Urueta, Manuela Ballester, Concha Toussaint, Rosario Cabrera, Fanny Rabel, las hermanas Josefa y Juliana San Román and Mercedes Zamora, among others. Through their canvases, these painters defied the social conventions of their times to create an important artistic production, despite formative limitations and the themes imposed to them by their era, a condition that began to change towards the first decades of the 20th century, with the enrollment of a greater number of female students in Mexican art academies. The Kaluz Museum is honoured to present its homonymous collection for the enjoyment of the general public; our wish is to become a platform for all those who are interested in researching and disseminating knowledge of Mexican art and aesthetics.
The Mexico this exhibition seeks to reveal is a plural and diverse country that encompasses a broad definition of who Mexicans are, including not only those who were born here but the ones who chose to make it their home, as well as foreign artists who found a country that opened its doors to them during their travels, however brief or long. Pelegrín Clavé, José María Velasco, Joaquín Clausell, Gerardo Murillo “Dr. Atl”, Ángel Zárraga, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Raúl Anguiano, are among the prominent signatures one can find in our collection. Women are also represented through the brushstrokes of María Izquierdo, Angelina Beloff, Cordelia Urueta, Manuela Ballester, Concha Toussaint, Rosario Cabrera, Fanny Rabel, las hermanas Josefa y Juliana San Román and Mercedes Zamora, among others.
Through their canvases, these painters defied the social conventions of their times to create an important artistic production, despite formative limitations and the themes imposed to them by their era, a condition that began to change towards the first decades of the 20th century, with the enrollment of a greater number of female students in Mexican art academies. The Kaluz Museum is honoured to present its homonymous collection for the enjoyment of the general public; our wish is to become a platform for all those who are interested in researching and disseminating knowledge of Mexican art and aesthetics.