Francisco Goitia
He then began to keep track of current events, reading a local newspaper, and studying its illustrations, learning how figures and movement were depicted.
[3][6] There he studied under José María Velasco, Julio Ruelas, Germán Gedovius and Saturnino Herrán and became friends with Rufino Tamayo, who influenced his work.
[1][3] However, he found the strict academic form exclusively taught at the school to be hostile to his more liberal artistic expression.
[3][7] Here he began to study with Catalan painter Franesc Gali, also developing a friendship with Luis Plaindura, an art collector who supported him economically.
This success led Mexican authorities to support him with a small monthly stipend, allowing him to travel in France and Italy, living in Rome and Florence to study Renaissance painting and classical architecture.
However, General Felipe Ángeles, Villa's chief of staff was persuaded by Goitia's idea and named him cultural attaché.
During this time, Goitia painted scenes denouncing misery and pain, in works such as El ahorcado, La bruja and Paisaje de Patillo, en Zacatecas.
[1][3] When Villa's army was defeated by that supporting Venustiano Carranza at the Battle of Celaya, Goitia left and went to Mexico City as a civilian.
[1][3] After initial hardships, Goitia met Manuel Gamio, an anthropologist dedicated to archeological and ethnographic research in various parts of Mexico.
From 1918 to 1925, Gamio commissioned Goitia to sketch archeological sites and objects, as well as document the aesthetic aspect of Mexico's various cultures, a part of a multidisciplinary project that also involved historian, architects, biologists and photographers.
A number of his works related to this project were exhibited at the Inter-American Indigenous Institute from 1924 to 1925, allowing Goitia to travel to the United States.
[3][6] Although most assert that Goitia lived in abject poverty in Xochimilco, this notion has been disputed as he had money for high quality art supplies.
[9] In the 1940s, he returned to Zacatecas for a time to paint, restore canvases at the Franciscan monastery of Guadalupe and do other projects as well as support religious orders, often donating to them the proceeds of his art sales.
He presented sketches for a monumental sculpture of Fray Martín de Valencia and worked on architectural planning projects for the remodeling of town square, including the Zocalo in Mexico City.
[1] In 2009, a photographic exhibition called The Death of Goitia was part of the Festival Internacional Cervantino, based on his funeral.
[5] His life began in the Porfirio Díaz years, living to see the Revolution and how it shaped Mexico in the first half of the 20th century.
His themes are generally somber, expressing a sense of poetry in the collective conscious and suffering of the Mexican people.
[1][6] His technique is shadowy and archaic in appearance, generally depicting scenes of the Revolution and the poor, people suffering physical and moral misery.
