The day - pictorial heritage of Citibanamex, key in national art history
Mexico City.In the pictorial heritage that the Citibanamex Financial Group has, of around 1,500 works, “there are key pieces to understand the history of art in Mexico that does not have any other public or private collection", as two paintings by Eulalia Lucio (1853-1900), considered by the experts the "artistic mother" of the great national painters María Izquierdo (1902-1955) and Frida Kahlo (1907-1954).
Pictures of these three authors occupy a special place in the walls of the Forum Valparaíso Museum, where “the crown jewels" of the huge collection that that commercial institution has, also integrated by popular art.
Antes de ser adquirido por la estadunidense Citi, el espíritu de la colección es muy claro: conservar obras que tengan que ver con México, con la historia del país y con su patrimonio, explica Angélica Velázquez Guadarrama, curadora de la muestra permanente que se exhibe en la casa matriz del banco, ubicada en el Centro Histórico de la Mexico City.
In an interview with the day, he details that unlike other private collections, Banamex “has a very particular Mexican line, and we only talk about the more than 1,500 painting works in different techniques: watercolor, cake, oil, acrylic;Of these, more than 90 percent have in common that are or Mexican artists or Mexican artists ".
Highlights the presence of Eulalia Lucio's work, one of the most important artists of his time, and Guadalupe Moncada, the first Mexican painter to sign one of her creations.
Since 1781, the Academy of San Carlos institutionalized the teaching of arts in Mexico under the ideals of European academies with the aim of promoting diversity and participation as the right of all citizens of New Spain, but in practice you do notcarried out.
It was until 1886 that the precise instruction of the authorities existed to allow women to enter.Before that, artists learned pictorial techniques in private classes, self -taught or in general schools, and most of them made copies.
"San Carlos did not buy the work of women, so many pieces stayed in private collections that Banamex Cultural Promotion has rescued," adds the specialist.
Among them, continues, Eulalia Lucio was one of the first to mark a different pattern, motivated by the interest that his father, doctor and collector Rafael Lucio had in the works of José Agustín Arrieta, Painter Poblano, also of the nineteenth century, from whom Banamex recently bought works in Germany to repatriate them.
"Eulalia was a very prepared and intelligent woman, made the preferred gender of expression, through which the relationship between the masculine and the feminine, between the work and areas of both genres,"details the art historian.
In the Valparaíso Forum, in the First Chamber, you can also appreciate the first work signed by an artist woman, who is Guadalupe Moncada.This is a Virgin of Guadalupe dated 1798.
“There is news that there were other women artists in the Novohispana era, but we cannot corroborate it because when we are not signed there are pieces that we do not know if a woman made them."
La colección Citibanamex cuenta asimismo con un hermoso retrato de Moncada, de autor desconocido, donde se le ve de niña, sentada frente a una mesa, con lápiz en mano, justo en el momento de realizar sus primeros bocetos, lo cual “revela tanto su temprana formación artística en los modelos académicos como la educación ilustrada que recibió en su hogar".
Guadalupe appears with his brother Juan Nepomuceno, just nine months and “it is very likely that the portrait commemorates the new birth in the family of a male heir in 1781, and that he has been entrusted by his grandmother, the Countess of San Mateo deValparaíso and Marquesa del Jaral de Berrio, who after the birth of his grandson (who would inherit his titles), insisted on getting a new one for his very dear granddaughter, that of Marquesa de San Román.
“In the Valparaíso forum the public can enjoy a selection of the Banamex collection. Es uno de los palacios virreinales más bonitos de la Mexico City; perteneció a los marqueses de Jaral del Berrio, propietarios también del Palacio de Iturbide. Por eso el banco se dedicó a comprar todo lo relacionado con esa familia; en Valparaíso se exhiben los retratos del marqués, de su esposa, una mujer muy interesante, empresaria en la época colonial, llamada Ana María de la Campa y Cos".
Likewise, “there are the daughter and grandchildren's portraits.The main granddaughter was precisely Guadalupe Moncada and Berrio, the painter.This does not happen every day, that a colonial building is restored, open to the public and that all family history has been rescued through these portraits, masterpieces of important artists of the 18th century, such as Miguel Cabrera, who painted another member of the family.All these pieces have been hung again in the place where they were originally. Es maravilloso", concluyó.
