39 Facts About Arnold Belkin

Arnold Belkin was a Canadian-Mexican painter credited for continuing the Mexican muralism tradition at a time when many Mexican painters were shifting away from it.

Arnold Belkin studied further in Mexico, focusing his education and his career mostly on murals, creating a type of work he called a "portable mural" as a way to adapt it to new architectural style.

Arnold Belkin had a successful career creating canvas works as well with several notable series of paintings.

Arnold Belkin spent most of his life and career in Mexico except for a stay in New York City in the late 1960s to mid-1970s.

Arnold Belkin's best known works are the murals he created for the University Autonoma Metropolitana in the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City.

Arnold Belkin's father was a Russian Jewish immigrant who became prominent in the Vancouver Jewish community when the family moved there shortly after Belkin's birth.

Arnold Belkin began drawing and painting at an early age.

Arnold Belkin's parents were socialist, which would affect his later artwork, giving him an harshal in social issues and the rights of the underprivileged.

Arnold Belkin began formal art training at the Vancouver School of Art, studying there from 1945 to 1947.

Arnold Belkin enrolled into the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" from 1948 to 1949, studying with Agustin Lazo, Carlos Orozco Romero and Andres Sanchez Flores.

Arnold Belkin was an assistant on two murals from that time Patricios y Patricidas at the former customs building in Santo Domingo along with the Cuauhtemoc mural at the Palacio de Bellas Artes from 1950 to 1951.

Arnold Belkin participated in the workshop of Guillermo Silva Santamaria where he met Francisco Icaza and Leonel Gongora.

Arnold Belkin spent most of the rest of his life in Mexico, except for a trip to Europe and a number of years spent in New York City in the 1970s, connecting with American painters such as Omar Rayo, Rodolfo Abularach, Cesar Paternosto and Rubens Gerchman.

Arnold Belkin returned to Mexico to stay in 1976, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1981.

Arnold Belkin was married once, to dancer Esperanza Gomez with whom he had two daughters.

Arnold Belkin died in Mexico City on July 3,1992, from lung cancer at age 61.

Arnold Belkin was buried at the Panteon Judio in Mexico City with honors.

Arnold Belkin's career spanned more than three decades, during which time he produced 28 major public murals, various smaller ones, with about ninety individual exhibitions and over fifty collective ones in Mexico and abroad and designed sets and costumes for forty Mexican stage productions, as well as other activities.

Arnold Belkin painted a number of other murals in the New York City area.

Arnold Belkin painted Epimiteo on the cafeteria walls of Dumont High School in New Jersey in 1973.

Arnold Belkin became the artist-in-residence for the institution in 1983 and starting painting the Teatro del Fuego Nuevo as part of a course he taught there, finishing in 1984.

Arnold Belkin finished the last mural in 1988 on Building E after painting the library and the social sciences building.

Arnold Belkin created ten major pieces of this type of work.

At various points in his career, Arnold Belkin was a professor and teacher, mostly related to mural work.

Arnold Belkin's fame increased in the 1970s with exhibitions in the United States, Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba.

Arnold Belkin painted images of the future and of utopia, such as Armoured Figure done in New York.

Arnold Belkin founded the Taller del Muralismo Comunitario in 1978.

Arnold Belkin published a catalog of lithographs called Two with poems by Jack Hirschman published by Zora Gallery in 1963.

Arnold Belkin created postcards at various points in his life included one in 1966 for the Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes featuring Eolo, Greek goddess of wind, one in 1981 for the Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores to honor the bicentennial of the birth of Simon Bolivar and one in 1988 for the Mexican postal service with a portrait of Cesar Vallejo.

Arnold Belkin did a few sculptures which include a large scale one in 1981 called El Estudiante for the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa and one in 1986 for the Jardin Escultorico at the Bosque Lazaro Cardenas in Morelia.

Arnold Belkin keynoted the III Coloquio Latinoamericano de Fotografia in Havana talking about his experience using photography in his art.

Arnold Belkin is credited with continuing the Mexican muralism tradition in the mid-20th century when the Generacion de la Ruptura headed by artists like Jose Luis Cuevas and Rafael Coronel were taking the Mexican art scene away from muralism and its Marxist tendencies.

Arnold Belkin's works are characterized in the use of intense, dark and often ochre colors in the entire work depicting the human body as central along with geometric figures.

Arnold Belkin believed that art should serve as a teaching tool and to spark political discourse, often presenting humanity's most controversial and painful experiences.

Arnold Belkin generally did not produce works merely for aesthetics.

Arnold Belkin painted historical scenes, never allegory and although his work was influenced by the socialist ideals of his parents, his heroes were those of Latin America, not Canada.

Arnold Belkin did paint some other subjects, for example in the 1970s he created pieces criticizing the automatization of modern life, depicting men as robots.

Arnold Belkin was influenced by Rico Lebrun who visited Mexico in the 1960s resulting in works which were monochromatic emphasizing the use of grays, sepias, ochres and black.

Arnold Belkin's work took on a strong ochre tone in the 1970s when he began to work in oils and sculpture.