Francisco Dosamantes On Sale

Francisco Dosamantes was born in Mexico City on October 4, 1911, son of artist and builder Daniel Dosamantes. Encouraged by his father and his uncle Juan he began studying art. The Mexican Revolution occurred while he was a young child and he stated that he remembered events such as soldiers on horses charging as well as the execution of rural farmworkers, events that would inform his work for the rest of his life. Dosamantes attended primary and high school in Mexico City but stated that his education was irregular and deficient. He then entered the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, where he studied for five years. After graduating, Dosamantes worked at various cultural missions from 1932–45, where he worked with the rural farm workers and became a champion of their causes. In Mexico City, he taught classes in high schools from 1937–41. In 1945, Dosamantes founded and directed the Taller Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura. He was a member of Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios between 1934–38. Dosamantes was a member of the LEAR in the mid-1930s, before joining the TGP in 1937. Also before working with the TGP, Dosamantes studied at the Academia de San Carlos and, in 1928, was a part of the painters’ organization Treinta-treinta. In 1937, he was a founding member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP). In 1940, he became the secretary-general of the Sindicato de Maestros de Artes Plásticas. Dosamantes is primarily known as a printmaker but he also painted several murals in rural areas of Mexico between 1941–46, generally when he was there on cultural missions. As a book illustrator, he primarily worked for the Secretaría de Educación Pública working on books for literacy campaigns. Dosamantes died in Mexico City on July 18, 1986.

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

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