Tres figuras femeninas con pájaro azul. (Three female figures with blue bird)

Carlos Merida

Guatamala-born Carlos Mérida left home at age 17 to move to Paris where he spent four years living in the same studio building as Picasso and Modigliani, his work there was highly influenced by the early Surrealists, including Paul Klee.

Upon his return in 1914 he finally settled in Mexico where his abstract work focused on the murals and artworks based on Mayan-Quiché images. This screen-print features three abstracted, perhaps Mayan, figures that resemble paper cut-out dolls. He features the costumes of the indiginous people in Latin America.

There is an impression of this screen-print at the Museo Nacional de la Estampa MX.

Carlos Mérida, painter, muralist, printmaker, illustrator, theatre producer, musician, educator, and interior designer, was born in Quexaltenango, in the Guatemalan Highlands on December 2, 1891. Frequently misidentified as a Mexican artist due to his many years living there, Merida was in fact very proud of his Guatemalan heritage, and the idigenous folk art of his homeland would become a focus of his style. He lived in Guatemala City until 1910 when he travelled to France on a German cargo ship with friend Carlos Valenti. It was in Paris that Mérida was introduced to the leading avant-garde artists such as Van Dongen, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and Piet Mondrian, as well as other Latin American artists such as Diego Rivera, Jorge Enciso, Angel Zarraga, and Dr. Atl.

By 1914 Mérida had returned to Guatemala, formed a partnership with sculptor 'Yela Gunther, and attempted a pro-Indigenous movement in art but found mitigating success in his home country. A suggestion from his Mexican friends in Europe prompted Mérida to exhibit his works in Mexico. He relocated there in 1919 and found an audience that appreciated his folk-themed paintings: a combination of traditional Guatemalan folklore and his "American" or New World identity. Just before 1920 Mérida returned to Mexico. It was the end of the Mexican Revolution, and was also one year before Diego Rivera returned to Mexico from Europe.

Diego Rivera approached Mérida, as well as Xavier Guerrero and Jean Charlot, with the idea of beginning the Renacimiento Mexicano (Mexican Renaissance) in 1922. They began the movement with a mural project: the frescoes of the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. Mérida had also worked as an assistant to Rivera at the Bolivar Amphitheatre. At the Children's Library in the Ministry of Education Mérida had designed and painted a mural called Caperucita Roja y los Cuatro Elementos. He continued to work on a number of murals in Mexico and throughout Guatemala.

In the late twenties Mérida travelled to Europe again and renewed his love of French art and relationships with those he befriended back in 1910. It was on this trip that Mérida's affinity for abstraction truly blossomed and greatly influenced much of his later works. He returned to Mexico before the end of 1929.

Soon after returning to Mexico, Mérida began working on a mural at the Secretaria de Recursos Hidraulicos (Secretary of Hydraulic Systems) with Mexican Muralist Mario Pani. During his work with Pani, Mérida became enthralled with a concept called "plastic integration." Plastic integration is a process in which art and architecture are combined; each conceived with the conscientiousness of the other. This new concept culminated in one grand project: the Benito Juarez Housing Project, a housing development that was to cover 4,000 square meters. Unfortunately the majority of the project, including Mérida's huge mural (largest of the world at that time) were destroyed in the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

Mérida teamed up with Mexican artist Carlos Orozco Romero in 1932 to open the Dance School of the Secretariat of Public Education. He also invited other artists to take part in the project, including Agustín Lazo, Leopoldo Méndez, Silvestre Revueltas, and Blas Galindo. Mérida ran the school for three years working with dancers such as Gloria and Nellie Campobello and his own daughter, Ana Mérida, who was later to become a noted Mexican choreographer. For Mérida it was a means of expressing that which music and painting could not. This work led him to design the sets and costumes for twenty-two works from 1940 to 1979.

Mérida continued to paint until the day he died at the age of ninety-three years old on December 22, 1984.