Byron Galvez was a Mexican artist who was primarily known for his painting but created sculpture, including monumental works.
24 Facts About Byron Galvez
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Byron Galvez was born in rural Hidalgo state, to a father who played jazz music and read literature, a rarity in 1930s rural Mexico.
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Byron Galvez went to Mexico City to study art at both the undergraduate and graduate level, but never completed his degrees, opting instead to begin career after his coursework.
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Byron Galvez concentrated on painting, which he is better known for, in the 1970s and 1980s, but moved on to sculpture, including monumental works later in his career.
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Recognitions for Byron Galvez's work include membership in the Salon de la Plastica Mexicana, a retrospective at the Palacio de Bellas Artes and two books published about his life.
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Byron Galvez was born in Mixquiahuala, Hidalgo and described his childhood as happy, and would not have changed it.
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Byron Galvez's father, Roberto Galvez, was a farmer and merchant, who was a music and literature enthusiast, a rarity is 1930s rural Mexico.
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Byron Galvez's father played the violin in the town's jazz band, which had almost all classical instruments, making it similar to bands in New Orleans.
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However, instead of music or literature, Byron Galvez stated that his earliest memories related to his attraction to art and that he always wanted to be a painter.
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Byron Galvez did his undergraduate studies from 1958 to 1962, then continued with the graduate courses from 1962 to 1964, specializing in painting.
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Byron Galvez did much of his studies under teachers such as Luis Nishizawa, Fernando Castro Pacheco, Francisco Moreno Capdevila, Santos Balmori, Antonio Rodriguez Luna and Antonio Ramirez.
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Byron Galvez constructed a house and studio on the edge of a ravine in which flows the Moctezuma River.
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Byron Galvez died at age 67 at Ingles Observatorio Hospital from a heart attack.
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Byron Galvez's ashes were deposited a year after his death to the side of one of the sculptures at his home in Mixquiahuala.
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Byron Galvez managed to create forty five more paintings in the remaining time in order to have the exhibit.
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Byron Galvez received over fifteen awards and honorary tributes during his lifetime.
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For Byron Galvez, art was spiritual and disconnected with physical logic, when only aesthetics mattered.
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Byron Galvez work has been influenced by the Cubism of Picasso and Georges Braque, by African and Oceanic folk art and by pre-Columbian sculpture.
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Byron Galvez preferred large scale works often bigger than seven by seven feet.
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Byron Galvez painted while listening to classical, jazz and occasionally, rock music.
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Byron Galvez's work experienced periods in which different artistic currents dominated including expressionism, abstract art and mixtures of the two.
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Byron Galvez considered Picasso to be the greatest artist of all time.
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Byron Galvez began doing sculpture though his work with murals, with his initial sculptural work showing the influence of Manuel Felguerez with sculptures evolving from two dimensional to three.
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Byron Galvez's sculpting work influenced his painting and vice versa.