Juan O'Gorman
Template:Short description Template:Infobox artist Juan O'Gorman (6 July 1905 – 17 January 1982) was a Mexican painter and architect.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Early life and family
[edit]Juan O'Gorman was born on 6 July 1905 in Coyoacán,<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref name="Danes2">Template:Cite journal</ref> then a village to the south of Mexico City and now a borough of the city, to an Irish immigrant father, Cecil Crawford O'Gorman and Encarnación O'Gorman Moreno. His parents were distant cousins. He had three younger siblings, Edmundo, Margarita and Tomás.<ref name="Murray">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> Despite his father's influence, O'Gorman chose to focus on architecture early in his career.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1927, he graduated from Academy of San Carlos, the Art and Architecture school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.<ref name="Danes2" />
His first marriage was to Nina Wright, Russian-American architect. He later married Helen Fowler, an American artist with whom he had an adopted daughter.<ref name=":0" />
Career
[edit]San Ángel houses
[edit]In 1929, O'Gorman purchased a plot containing two tennis courts in Mexico City's San Ángel colonia. On the plot, O'Gorman constructed a small house and studio intended for use by his father, now known as the Cecil O'Gorman House. The building's forms were strongly influenced by the work of Le Corbusier, whose theories of architecture O'Gorman studied.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref> O'Gorman dubbed the house the first functionalist structure in Latin America.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Danes2" />
Diego Rivera, a contemporary of O'Gorman, impressed with the design of the Cecil O'Gorman House, commissioned the architect to design a home for him and Frida Kahlo on an adjacent plot (O'Gorman and Kahlo had been friends since high school in Coyoacan).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The house was built in a similar functionalist style from 1931 to 1932.<ref name="Danes2" /><ref name=":0" /> The Rivera-Kahlo house was two houses connected by a bridge.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite web</ref> Both houses were purchased to be restored and opened to the public with the Rivera-Kahlo house operating as a museum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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The 1929 Cecil O'Gorman House
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The exterior staircase of the Cecil O'Gorman house.
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The Rivera-Kahlo house as visible from the street
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A bridge connects the two divisions of the Rivera-Kahlo house
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Panorama of Rivera-Kahlo house
Schools
[edit]In 1932, Narciso Bassols, then Secretary of Education, appointed O'Gorman to the position of Head of Architectural Office of the Ministry of Public Education, where he went on to design and build 26 elementary schools in Mexico City.<ref name=":0" /> The schools were built with the philosophy of "eliminating all architectural style and executing constructions technically."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
After 6 years of functionalist projects, O'Gorman turned away from strict functionalism later in life to focus on painting and murals, including works at the Mexico City airport in 1937 <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and "Credit Transforms Mexico" for the International Bank on Reforma Avenue, now moved to HSBC.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
After being asked by Edgar Kaufmann Sr. to submit a proposal for murals for the Pittsburgh Young Men's & Women's Hebrew Association, O'Gorman spent a weekend at Fallingwater, which inspired him to return to architecture,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> this time a more organic architecture, combining the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright with traditional Mexican constructions.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Central Library at Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM)
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Juan O'Gorman's most celebrated work due to its creativity, construction technique, and dimensions, are the four thousand square meters murals covering the four faces of the building of the Central Library at Template:Lang at UNAM. These murals are mosaics made from millions of colored stones that he gathered all around Mexico in order to be able to obtain the different colors he needed.<ref name=":1" /> The north side pictures Mexico's pre-Hispanic past and the south facade its colonial one, while the east wall depicts the contemporary world, and the west shows the university and contemporary Mexico.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
From the beginning, I had the idea of making mosaics of colored stones in the walls of the collections, with a technique in which I was already well experienced. With these mosaics the library would be different from the other buildings of Template:Lang, and it would be given a particular Mexican character.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Later work
[edit]O'Gorman built and designed his own house in the suburb of Pedregal,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which was part built structure part natural cave, which is known as "The Cave House" from 1953 to 1956. It was decorated with mosaics throughout. It was demolished in 1969.<ref name=":3" />
His paintings often treated Mexican history, landscape, and legends. A mural commission in Pátzcuaro, Michoacan resulted in the huge "La historia de Michoacán" in the Biblioteca Pública Gertrudis Bocanegra in a former church.<ref>Jolly, Jennifer, Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building Under Lázaro Cárdenas. Austin: University of Texas Press 2018. Template:ISBN</ref> He painted the murals in the Independence Room in Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle, and the huge murals of his own 1952 Central Library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, designed with Gustavo Saavedra and Juan Martínez de Velasco.
In 1959, together with fellow artists, Raúl Anguiano, Jesús Guerrero Galván, and Carlos Orozco Romero, O'Gorman founded the militant Unión de Pintores y Grabadores de México (Mexican Painters and Engravers Union).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Death
[edit]He died on 17 January 1982, as a result of suicide. Authorities believe the artist grew despondent after being diagnosed with a heart ailment which curtailed his work. O'Gorman was found dead at his home.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Awards
[edit]- National Prize for Arts and Sciences of "fine arts", 1972.
Bibliography
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See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]References
[edit]External links
[edit]Template:Artists related to Mexican muralism Template:Members of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana
- Pages with broken file links
- Mexican muralists
- Modernist architects from Mexico
- Mexican modern painters
- Functionalist architects
- International style architects
- 1905 births
- 1982 deaths
- Artists from Mexico City
- Suicides in Mexico
- Architects from Mexico City
- Architecture firms of Mexico
- National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni
- Artists who died by suicide
- Mexican people of Irish descent
- 20th-century Mexican architects
- 20th-century Mexican painters
- Mexican male painters
- 1982 suicides
- 20th-century Mexican male artists