Latin American/Caribbean Art

Art produced in the period before European contact in the 16th century in the culture area of West Mexico, which comprises the modern Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Michoacán.

West Mexican art is characterized by some of the most distinctive styles of Mesoamerica, Pre-Columbian. There has, however, been little systematic research into or study of West Mexican material in its archaeological context; most examples have been obtained through the looting of sites and the consequent destruction of all information regarding archaeological context and provenance. The unique qualities of West Mexican art, pertaining particularly to the shaft-tomb tradition, lacked monumentality. Few Mesoamerican deities were represented, and there was an emphasis on the portrayal of realistic anthropomorphic and zoomorphic ceramic figures. This aspect may have had a symbolic connection with shamanism and relates primarily to tomb offerings. West Mexican art seems to have functioned on the level of village-centred or domestic cults, rather than in the state-level civic or religious ceremonies of nuclear Mesoamerica....

(b West Carlisle, OH, April 8, 1871; d Mexico City, July 8, 1925).

American photographer and teacher . A self-taught photographer, he began taking photographs in 1893 and soon developed a style that showed the influence of Whistler, Sargent and Japanese prints. He was elected to the Linked Ring, Brotherhood of the group of Pictorial photographers in 1900 and was a leading member of the Photo-Secession from 1902. His evocative photographs of rural landscapes and of his family celebrate the joys and virtues of the simple, middle-class way of life that existed in the USA before World War I (e.g. Ring Toss , 1899; New York, Met.)

By 1906 White was already a major figure in American photography and moved to New York, where he began a close professional and artistic relationship with Alfred Stieglitz that lasted until 1912. His work was published in Camera Work in July 1903, Jan 1905, July 1908, July 1909 and Oct 1910. In 1908 he began teaching photography, founding in ...

(b Munich, 1905; d Key Biscayne, FL, 1969).

Colombian painter of German birth. He studied at the Kunstakademie in Munich under the German painter Hugo von Habermann (1899–1981) and the German painter and printmaker Adolf Schinnerer (1876–1949). He lived in Berlin in 1931–1932, coming into contact with Max Liebermann, and in 1933 he exhibited with the Neue Sezession in Munich. He decided to leave Germany for political reasons, particularly after Hitler’s persecution of “degenerate” art, and in 1939 he traveled to Colombia; he acquired Colombian nationality seven years later. He was immediately dazzled by the local population and by tropical plant life, which he began to interpret with an extremely expressive line and bold use of color.

All vestiges of representation later disappeared from Wiedemann’s work, and he devoted himself, particularly in his watercolors, to a lyrical use of color that led him to pure abstraction. These paintings, in spite of their freedom of expression and color, were characterized by strong lines and an underlying geometrical emphasis. Afterwards he made collages using humble materials such as wire, string, plaster, cloth, and paper, which he transformed into aesthetically unified compositions notable for their rhythmic sequences. Wiedemann’s work, particularly because of its poetic, spontaneous, and experimental nature, influenced both abstract and figurative art in Colombia....

(b Primavera, Paraguay, 1943).

American installation and performance artist, writer and educator of Paraguayan birth. Emigrating from Paraguay to the United States in 1961, Faith Wilding consistently examined the social role of women and their bodies as the subject of her art. She received her BA in English with honors from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Wilding did postgraduate studies in Art and Art History at California State University, Fresno, where she met the artist Judy Chicago, who founded the first Feminist Art Program. Wilding completed her MFA at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and served as teaching assistant for the renowned Feminist Art Program (FAP), team-taught by Chicago and artist Miriam Schapiro. In the FAP, Wilding led a consciousness-raising group and a journal writing class, in addition to participating in the famed collaborative project Womanhouse (Jan 30–Feb 28, 1972) with her crocheted installation Crocheted Environment (Womb Room) , which resembles a loosely crocheted spider’s web, and in the performance ...

(b Trieste, Apr 23, 1928; d São Paulo, Feb 14, 2014).

Brazilian architect, urban planner, politician, and writer of Italian birth. He graduated from the Mackenzie’s School of Architecture in 1952. In his student years, Wilheim worked as an assistant to journalist and curator Pietro Maria Bardi at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP, 1946–1948) and in the office of architect Rino Levi (1950–1951). Wilheim established his professional practice in 1953 after winning the competition for the Santa Casa de Jaú Hospital (1954). He also engaged his career into politics, heading three government offices in São Paulo: the State Secretariat for Economy and Planning (1975–1979), the Municipal Secretariat for Planning (1983–1985; 2001–2004), the Secretariat for the Environment (1987–1991), and the Empresa Paulista de Planejamento Metropolitano (EMPLASA, 1991–1994). He was also the Adjunct Secretary-General of the United Nations (1994–1996) and helped to organize the Habitat II Conference held in Istanbul in 1996. As a writer, Wilheim edited magazines on art and politics and published articles and books about urban planning. Wilheim was the articulator of the strategic planning concept in Brazil. His career was mainly concerned with the design of public buildings and especially with the urban planning of several cities in Brazil....

(b Buenos Aires, Feb 19, 1913; d Buenos Aires, Oct 14, 1989).

Argentine architect and urban planner. He was the son of the composer Alberto Williams. He first studied engineering and aviation and became a leading member of the Rationalist Grupo Austral, before graduating as an architect from the University of Buenos Aires in 1941; he then went into practice in Buenos Aires. Williams became well known for his daring design experiments, manipulating space and utilizing technology to the full; they include such projects as ‘Dwellings in Space’ (1942), International Airport (1945) and ‘Hanging Office Building’ (1946), all in Buenos Aires; the latter was conceived as four huge concrete columns with beams and upper arcades from which the floors were hung. His built works include the Concert Hall (1942–53), Buenos Aires, and the House over the Brook (1943–5), constructed for his father in Mar del Plata; with the aim of raising the building off the ground but eliminating columns, the structure was designed like a bridge, supported on a parabolic curve....

(b Roxbury, MA, April 14, 1922).

American sculptor, painter, printmaker and teacher. Raised in Roxbury, a suburb of Boston, Wilson was the second of five children of Reginald and Violet Wilson, immigrants from British Guiana (now the Republic of Guyana). He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with a full scholarship and received a diploma with highest honors in 1945; a BS degree in art education followed in 1947 from Tufts University. With a fellowship from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, he spent 1947–9 in Paris, where he studied with Fernand Léger. Returning to Boston he taught briefly at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, married Julie Kowitch and moved to Mexico City with a John Hay Whitney Fellowship. There he became friends with Elizabeth Catlett and her husband Francesco Mora, both active in the graphic workshop organized by leftist artists, the Taller de Gráfica Popular, where he worked. In Mexico he learned the techniques of true fresco, which had been popularized by Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and painted the mural, ...

(b Valencia, 1759; d Mexico, 1825).

Spanish painter, draughtsman, and teacher, also active in Mexico. His early years in Valencia were strongly influenced by his uncle, the painter Luis Planes (1742–1821), who taught him drawing and whose work has sometimes been attributed to his nephew and pupil. Ximeno was closely involved in the academic world in which he spent his whole career. He was very young when he attended the Academia de S Carlos in Valencia, where he won prizes in painting in 1773 and in life drawing in 1775. In the same year he left to study at the Academia de S Fernando, Madrid, under Manuel Monfort y Asensi, and eventually, after a failed attempt in 1778, he won a scholarship to study at the Accademia di S Luca, Rome. At these academies he received a training based on the strictest classicism, which he later implanted in Mexico.

In Madrid, Ximeno was attracted to the art of Anton Raphael Mengs, whose works he copied between ...