Juan Soriano (artist)
[2] He described his family of origin as “eccentric.”[3] He was a child prodigy, and in 1933, his sister introduced him to painter Alfonso Michel Martínez who taught him current modes of Expressionist and neo Baroque painting.
He then studied under Francisco Rodríguez “Caracalla” at the Evolución Studio in Guadalajara, which also trained Raúl Anguiano and Jesús Guerrero Galván.
[5] However, the time there allowed him to meet creators such as Luis Barragán and Roberto Montenegro, experience European art in books and magazines and discover portraits by José María Estrada, which Reyes collected.
[2][6] The first exhibition of his work allowed him to meet artists such as José Chávez Morado, Lola Álvarez Bravo and María Izquierdo, who encouraged him to move to Mexico City, which he did in 1935 at the age of fifteen, along with his sister Martha.
[1][5] Here he continued a lifelong cultivation of friendships with artists, writers and intellectuals, which Soriano stated was one of the main treasures of his life.
[3] These included Xavier Villaurrutia, Carlos Pellicer, Octavio Paz (who wrote several essays about him), Lola and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Rafael Solana (with whom he traveled to UC Berkeley in 1938), Isabel Villaseñor, Frida Kahlo, Lupe Marín and Salvador Novo.
[6] In 1974, Soriano met Polish dancer Marek Keller on a visit to Paris, introduced by writer Sergio Pitol.
[7] Juan Soriano died in 2006 at the age of 85 at the Instituto Nacional de Nutrición Salvador Zubirán in Mexico City from multiple causes.
[6] In the 1960s he had an important show at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (1966) as well as an exhibit of a series of portraits her created with only Lupe Marín as model at the Misrachi Gallery.
His last major exhibits before his death included the Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Iberoamericana in Miami (2001), the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid (2002), the Meadows Museum and Southern Methodist University (2002), the Instituto Italo-Latino Americano in Rome (2003) and multiple exhibitions at the Instituto Mora in Mexico City (2005).
[3] Much of this work was with a group he created with Jaime García Terrés, Leonora Carrington and others called Poesís en Voz Alta, noted by Carlos Monsiváis as a “liberating movement of the theater” in Mexico.
From 1939 to 1941 he gave classes in nude drawing at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda", teaching students such as Tomás Parra.
In 2003 he illustrated La Fuerza del Destino by Julieta Campos and El Aguila o Sol by Octavio Paz.
In 1963 the Casa del Lago Juan José Arreola in Mexico City held a tribute and retrospective of his theater work.
[4] In 1990 a tribute was held for him at the National Museum of Mexican Art, and from 1995-1996 a retrospective of his graphic work toured the United States.
His work was highly prized by various writers including Octavio Paz, Carlos Pellicer and Elena Ponatowska, with art critic Luis Cardoza y Aragón quoted as saying he was “a poet, profound painter of visual parables.”[1][4] Soriano did not believe that art should be political or solemn and Jesús Reyes Ferreira was an early influence on his work.
[5] His painting style did change almost abruptly in the mid 1950s, marked by works such as La Carrera de bicicletas, Apolo y las muas and Peces luminosos, along with a portrait of María Zambrano, showing probably influence from painter Roberto Matta.
[6] The Museo Morelense de Arte Contemporáneo Archived 2020-08-14 at the Wayback Machine (MMAC) Juan Soriano opened on June 8, 2018, in Cuernavaca, Morelos.
