The work of José María Velasco, one of the most important Mexican artists of the 19th century, will be presented for the first time at the National Gallery in London, from March 29 to August 17.
On its website, the Gallery details that the exhibition José María Velasco: A vision of Mexico, by curators Dexter Dalwood and Daniel Sobrino Ralston, will also show the links between the landscape painter’s work and the paintings in the collection of the National Gallery in London, particularly The execution of Maximilian, by Édouard Manet.
The pieces will invite visitors to consider how 19th-century painters beyond Europe explored colonialism, industrialization and the effects of modernity on the natural world. The exhibition will also address broader concerns about the relationship between humans and the environment, seen through the lens of late 19th-century painters who witnessed extraordinary ecological change, a theme that resonates today.
This, the first exhibition in the United Kingdom dedicated to José María Velasco (1840-1912), includes works that reflect the fusion between the landscapes and nature of the Valley of Mexico, as well as the industrial advances of the time.
About the exhibition organized by the National Gallery of London and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, curator Dexter Dalwood said: José María Velasco’s paintings were able to absorb the tradition and history of European landscape painting, while taking the representation and understanding of the Mexican landscape to a new level of pictorial intelligence.
.
In turn, Daniel Sobrino Ralston, associate curator of Spanish paintings at the Hispanic European Studies Center of the National Gallery, said: We are delighted to introduce Velasco to our public in an exhibition that includes some of his most famous and impressive paintings. Velasco was one of Mexico’s leading painters, and this presentation, the first on a Latin American artist at the Gallery, will broaden and improve our understanding of 19th-century landscape painting
.
Velasco is recognized for his monumental paintings of the Valley of Mexico. Crafted over decades of social change, his paintings depict Mexico’s magnificent landscape and rapid industrialization.
While his contemporaries painted religious, mythological or traditional topics, Velasco made Mexican geography the motif of his work and a symbol of national identity, which led him to be considered the greatest exponent of nineteenth-century landscaping.
The Cerro de Guadalupe, the Valley of Mexico, the Barranca del Muerto, San Ángel, the Alameda and the Metlac Canyon inspired the artist to enrich his landscape work of the 19th and 20th centuries, in which he shares his knowledge of architecture, anthropology , botany, geology and paleontology.
Although his work has been exhibited in several countries, there are no paintings by Velasco in public collections in the United Kingdom; The last large-scale exhibition dedicated to him outside of Mexico was held in 1976 (in San Antonio and Austin, Texas), almost 50 years ago.
Velasco received many distinctions as a representative of Mexico at international exhibitions in the 1880s and 1890s. But he was much more than a painter: he was also a botanist, naturalist, and geologist with highly developed interests in Mesoamerican and modern history. He approached drawing and painting not only in search of beauty, but as part of an almost scientific process, seeking multiple ways to develop and express empirical knowledge.
His paintings explore the relationship between ancient and modern cultures, the mountainous terrain, flora and fauna of Mexico, as well as the impact of industrialization on the landscape. The London show will consider these interests and their influence on his art.
The National Gallery announced that a catalog of the exhibition will be published, which will be the first monographic study of the artist published outside of Mexico, with which it seeks to build a platform for future research, with critical essays and individual catalog entries by academics of Great Britain, Mexico and the United States.
As well as providing a comprehensive introduction to Velasco’s art, the exhibition will build on the National Gallery’s ongoing successful strategy over the recent 10 years of introducing non-European art to the British public.
The exhibition about the Mexican painter, whose work was declared a historical monument in 1943, coincides with the 200th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Mexico.
José María Velasco, originally from Temascalcingo, state of Mexico, was born on July 6, 1840. It is estimated that during 44 years he created nearly 300 oil paintings, as well as watercolors, lithographs and miniature paintings, works in which his landscapes and with which he managed to achieve international recognition for Mexican painting.