Aguascalientes is the capital of the Mexican state of the same name and its most populous city, as well as the head of the Aguascalientes Municipality; with a population of 948,990 inhabitants in 2012 and 1,225,432 in the metro area. The metropolitan area also includes the municipalities of Jesús María and San Francisco de los Romo. It is located in North-Central Mexico, which roughly corresponds to the Bajío region within the central Mexican plateau. The city stands on a valley of steppe climate at 1880 meters above sea level, at 21°51′N102°18′W.
Juan Soriano was a Mexican artist known for his paintings, sculptures and theater work. He was a child prodigy whose career began early as did his fame with various writers authoring works about him. He exhibited in the United States and Europe as well as major venues in Mexico such as the Museo de Arte Moderno and the Palacio de Bellas Artes. His monumental sculptures can be found in various parts of Mexico and in Europe as well. Recognitions of his work include Mexico's National Art Prize, the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres and membership in France's Legion of Honour.
Francisco Benjamín López Toledo was a Mexican painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. In a career that spanned seven decades, Toledo produced thousands of works of art and became widely regarded as one of Mexico's most important contemporary artists. An activist as well as an artist, he promoted the artistic culture and heritage of Oaxaca state. Toledo was considered part of the Breakaway Generation of Mexican art.
Luis Nishizawa Flores was a Mexican artist known for his landscape work and murals, which often show Japanese and Mexican influence. He began formal training as an artist in 1942 at the height of the Mexican muralism movement but studied other painting styles as well as Japanese art.
Rafael Coronel was a Mexican painter. He was the son-in-law of Diego Rivera.
Luis Arenal Bastar was a Mexican painter, engraver and sculptor. He was a founding member of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios, the Taller de Gráfica Popular and the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. In addition, he created murals and other monumental works in Mexico City and Guerrero.
Federico Heraclio Cantú Garza was a Mexican painter, engraver and sculptor. While considered to be a member of the Mexican muralism movement, his style was noticeably different, mostly for adhering to older and more academic forms of painting and sculpture. He had his most success exhibiting in the United States and Europe, but he did murals and sculptures in Mexico. His best known work is a sculpture called La maternidad which was adapted as the logo of the Instituto Mexicano de Seguro Social (IMSS).
Francisco Díaz de León was a Mexican graphic artist, notable for pioneering much of modern Mexican graphic arts. He spent his childhood around books and when he studied art in Mexico City, he specialized in engraving and illustration. He spent his career illustrating books, magazines and more, reviving techniques such as dry point and introducing new techniques and styles such as the use of color and linoleum printing. He was also a noted arts education, directing several schools including the Escuela Mexicana de las Artes del Libro, which he founded. He was a founding member of the Academia de Artes and a member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. In 1969 he received the Premio Nacional de Artes for engraving.
Jesús Reyes Ferreira, (1880-1977) born José de Jesús Benjamín Buenaventura de los Reyes y Ferreira and also known as Chucho Reyes, was a self-taught artist and antiques/art collector and vendor. Reyes Ferreira began painting on crêpe paper, a delicate material not meant to last, as a way of decorating paper meant to wrap sales from his antiques/art store. The decorated paper became popular enough to be sold on its own. Although he began this activity in Guadalajara, he did not produce the bulk of his work until after he moved to Mexico City when he was 58 years old. Here he continued collecting and selling objects such as colonial art and Mexican handcrafts and folk art, being one of the early exponents for the appreciation of these objects. He also spent several hours a day painting. His work was first exhibited in 1950 with his first individual exhibition in 1967 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes after a half century of painting. As a self-taught painter, his works are relatively simple and often are dismissed as folk painting but they were and his aesthetics were praised by famous artists and architects at the time.
Vladimir Cora is a Mexican painter and sculptor based in the state of Nayarit, whose work has been recognized by various awards and membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. He discovered art at age fifteen, after deciding that he could not be a musician. He received training in Tijuana and Mexico City, with his first success in the 1980s. His style has been described as neo-figurative, minimalist and coarse, and he creates his works in series usually related to the apostles, flowers, birds and women, especially those related to Nayarit. He has had over 150 individual exhibitions both in Mexico and abroad and continues to work from his home state.
Eliana Menassé is a Mexican painter and member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana, an honor society for Mexican artists.
Miguel Hernández Urbán is a Mexican painter and sculptor noted for his monumental works in stainless steel. He trained as a sculptor at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas but moved into painting under Antonio Rodríguez Luna. He returned to sculpture in the 1980s, experimenting with stainless steel, creating monumental works with it starting in the 1990s. In 1992, he founded the Symposium on Stainless Steel Sculpture in his hometown, the first of its kind in the work, which has since attracted participants from the Americas, Europe and Asia.
José Reyes Meza was a Mexican painter, costume and set designer, who helped to found a number of cultural institutions in Mexico. Reyes Meza began his artistic career principally in theater, although he was an active painter and even bullfighter in his early days. Painting became prominent starting in the 1970s, working on murals in various parts of Mexico as well as exhibiting canvas works in Mexico and abroad. The artist is a founding member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and his work has been acknowledged by tributes, various awards and an art museum in Nuevo Laredo named after him.
Naomi Siegmann was an American artist who developed her career in Mexico, and was noted for her depiction of everyday objects outside their normal contexts. She began her career after she moved to Mexico with her family, learning to carve wood. She worked in this medium for about twenty years, before moving on to other materials, including recycled ones, in part due to her concerns for the environment. During her career, she had solo exhibits in Mexico and the United States, with participation in collective exhibits in these countries and Europe. She has been commissioned to create monumental works in Mexico and the United States. Her work has been recognized through membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.
Rocio Caballero is a Mexican figurative painter, whose works often depict mythical worlds and are noted for her use of symbolism. Her work has been exhibited individually and collectively in Mexico, the United States, South America and Europe and can be found in collections such as that of the National Museum of Mexican Art. Her work has been recognized with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.
Susana Campos is a Mexican artist whose work tends to be complex compositions in various media generally introspective or commentary on society. She has had over thirty five individual exhibitions in Mexico and participated in various collective exhibitions in Mexico and abroad. Her work has been recognized with membership in the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana since 1966, and has been written about by various noted art writers in Mexico.
José Luis Romo Martín was a Mexican painter, sculptor and graphic artist of Otomi -Hñäñhü- heritage.
The Church of Saint Anthony of Padua is a Catholic church and monument in downtown Aguascalientes, Mexico, built between 1895 and 1908. The church is widely considered the masterpiece of Refugio Reyes Rivas, a mason who went to become one of the most influential architects in the region. In this work Rivas departed from any specific style, explicitly choosing an eclectic architecture drawing from neoclassical, baroque, Russian and even gothic and Islamic influences. The building was originally commissioned by the franciscans, but it is currently managed by the Order of Saint Augustine.
José Refugio Reyes Rivas was a Mexican architect, author of some of the most representative buildings of the city of Aguascalientes, where his work is considered part of the historical and architectural heritage. Reyes did not have professional architectural studies, so he is called "empirical architect". In 1985 he received the post mortem title of architect, granted by the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes. Reyes completed more than 200 buildings in the states of Zacatecas, Jalisco and Aguascalientes. He was characterized by his use of diverse decorative styles, from neoclassical to Art Nouveau, as well as construction innovations of the first half of the 20th century.
Exterior of the Aguascalientes Museum
Details on one of the columns decorating the museum
Visiting art students in the museum's courtyard
The museum's garden
A sculpture in the garden
Birds-eye view of the museum
