Artist Birthday: Carlos Mérida

In 1941 Mérida was invited to teach frescoes at the University of Austin in Texas. He remained there two years. Tempo in Red Major dates from that visit. It certainly reflects, in its title the influence of Kandinsky's writings that connected painting to music. The vibrant colors of Mérida's paintings may reflect his early training in Paris in the 1910s with the Fauvist Kees van Dongen (1877–1968). The organic forms may represent the influence of Joan Miró (1893–1983) whose biomorphic abstract forms the artist saw during his 1927–1929 visit to Paris.

Artist birthday for 28 November: Carlos Mérida (1891–1984, Guatemala)

Carlos Mérida was a pioneer Central American modernist.

Carlos Mérida, Tempo in Red major, 1942. Colored crayons on paper, 17 ¾" x 24" (45 x 61 cm). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2024 Estate of Carlos Mérida / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (MOMA-P2422mdaars)

Realism was always a strong element in Central American art during the 1930s. It was particularly favored after the Mexican Revolution (1910) for the same reasons it was in America during the Depression. In order to uplift the people’s morale and inspire them with patriotic scenes of life in Central American countries, realism was preferred. There was also a small group of artists who worked in a realism that was informed by a psychological expression.

Some Latinx artists of the pre-world War II (1939–1945) period, dissatisfied with the strictures of social realism went to Paris where they came in contact with the latest in modernist Western artistic experiment. Surrealism, Cubism and abstraction had a major impact on these artists, who brought these influences back to Central America with them, exciting the development of several modernist movements starting in the 1920s.

Carlos Mérida was born in Guatemala City. His early artistic training was in the Institute of Arts and Crafts in Guatemala City. He trained further with a cartoonist/painter/photographer in Quetzaltenango. In 1909 he met the Spanish artist/poet Jaime Sabartes (1881–1968), a friend of Picasso. Sabartes introduced Mérida to Picasso’s nascent Cubism. In 1910, excited by his learning about Cubism and the modernist experiment of Paris, he moved there.

In Paris, Mérida quickly became acquainted with all of the burgeoning Cubist artists, including Picasso, Braque, and Léger. He also learned much about painting from Modigliani. With the onset of World War I (1914–1918), Mérida ultimately returned to Guatemala. He began incorporating Guatemalan folklore into his works, and began to explore his Mayan and Zapotecan roots, incorporating abstract elements into his works influenced by ancient Mayan art. In 1919, he moved to Mexico City where he worked on some of Rivera’s murals.

A second visit to Paris (1927–1929) was a key epiphany for Mérida as he discovered Surrealism, and the fantasy work of Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Vasili Kandinsky (1866–1944). Although his work cannot really be classified as totally Surrealist, he embraced the Surrealist notion of automatic creation and the theories of Kandinsky about free abstraction.

This image is part of the following Davis program: Davis Collections, Latinx Art, Central and South America