María Izquierdo

María Izquierdo began studying at the Academia de San Carlos in 1927, a year after arriving in Mexico City with her three children. She was born in a strongly traditional rural environment, in which she was forced to marry at a very young age. Her early work was marked by the post-revolutionary period and, despite having moved away from the muralists’ representation of “Mexicanness,” she became a reference for Mexican iconography. Her body of work includes oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, woodcuts, and etchings, often imbued with intense colors. Through landscapes, portraits, circus scenes, and Mexican traditions, she expressed her vision of Mexico and a feminist stance, frequently presenting women as protagonists. In 1930, she became the first Mexican artist to show at the Art Center in New York, and in 2012, she was declared a “Mujer Ilustre” (illustrious Woman) by the Mexican government. To this day, she is recognized as one of the foremost representatives of 20th-century Mexican art.