Mexican, 20th – 21st century, male.
Born 1952, in Vigo, Spain.
Painter. Portraits.
Rafael Cidoncha is known mainly for his portraits, notably those of the art collector Mrs Natasha Gelman (1996) in which he reproduces Frida Kahlo's 1943 Self-portrait with Monkeys. He has also received official commissions including a portrait of King Juan Carlos of Spain, commissioned by the city of Seville. Cidoncha has shown his work in exhibitions in Madrid, New York, Brussels and Frankfurt. In ...
(b Juchitán, Oaxaca, Jul 17, 1940).
Mexican painter, sculptor, textile designer, printmaker, and collector. He grew up in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, an area that was rich in legends, rites, and beliefs springing from a strong Zapotec tradition predating the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He began to draw and paint at a very early age, studying first in Oaxaca, where he produced linocuts in the graphic workshop run by Arturo García Bustos (1926–2017). In 1957 he moved to Mexico City to attend the Escuela de Diseño y Artesanía of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. After holding his first solo shows of gouaches and prints in 1959 in Fort Worth, Texas, and Mexico City, he moved in 1960 to Paris, where until 1963 he studied printmaking under Stanley William Hayter. While continuing to work within Western traditions, he became interested in the art of Asian cultures and in ancient Mexican art, especially in those forms that were not officially sanctioned....
