Francisco Icaza was a Mexican artist best known for his drawings about his travels and his oil paintings.
27 Facts About Francisco Icaza
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Francisco Icaza spent much of his life living in and visiting various countries around the world.
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Francisco Icaza began painting as a child while living as a refugee in the Mexican embassy in Germany.
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Francisco Icaza painted a mural dedicated to Bertolt Brecht, La Farandula, at the Casino de la Selva in Cuernavaca, a focus of controversy when the work was moved and restored in the early 2000s.
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Francisco Icaza painted additional murals for the Mexican Pavilion at the HemisFair in Texas ; for the Mexican Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada ; and for the Mexican Pavilion in Osaka at Expo '70.
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Francisco Icaza was an active member of the Salon de la Plastica Mexicana and a member and founder of several important Mexican artistic movements including Los Interioristas, El Salon Independiente, and La Confrontacion 66.
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Francisco Icaza was born in the Mexican embassy in San Salvador on 5 October 1930, the son of a well known diplomat.
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Francisco Icaza's youth was very nomadic, as his family travelled to countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and America.
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Francisco Icaza began his career in 1947 with his first teacher, an Armenian painter and refugee, at the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon, where Francisco Icaza swore before the Olympic gods that the rest of his life would be dedicated to painting.
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In 1961, Francisco Icaza founded an artist group called Los Interioristas or Nueva Presencia with painter Arnold Belkin.
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Francisco Icaza painted a mural at the Casino de la Selva for the theater renovated by the architect Felix Candela.
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Francisco Icaza created a monumental sculpture dedicated to the muralist painter Jose Clemente Orozco.
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Francisco Icaza was a prolific easel oil painter and a prolific drawer with ink, gouache and water color.
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Francisco Icaza published several books, including La Fiera Malvada, Me quiero ir al mar, and Llegando a puerto en sentido contrario.
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Francisco Icaza rejected the commercialization of art but admitted that an artist needs to live from his work, taking advantage of different opportunities.
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Francisco Icaza's work has been exhibited in various venues in Mexico and abroad.
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Francisco Icaza was a member of the Salon de la Plastica Mexicana and an active member of Salon Independiente and the movement Confrontacion 66.
18.
Francisco Icaza protested the sale and the plan to restore his and other murals.
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Francisco Icaza was married to Tony Marcin for 24 years and lived in Mexico until his death.
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Francisco Icaza died at the age of 83 in Mexico City on the afternoon of 3 May 2014.
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Francisco Icaza has been classified as part of the Generacion de la Ruptura, the art movement that followed Mexican muralism.
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Francisco Icaza had social content in his work, that reflected his socialist ideals, much like the muralists; however his painting was not a communication with the masses.
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Francisco Icaza experimented with a wide range of themes and techniques.
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Francisco Icaza's production had marked periods, from neo figuration to criticism and from there to works that recall the ancient cultures as humorous and satirical recurrences.
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Francisco Icaza produced a series of oil paintings and drawings of prostitutes and the Lumpenproletariat that shows influence from German Expressionism and symbolist painter James Ensor.
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Francisco Icaza was a friend of Ray Bradbury and Aldous Huxley and admirer of Jose Clemente Orozco, all of whom affected his work, as well as his political ideas, which were strongly socialist and did not change over his life.
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Francisco Icaza was well-versed in contemporary and past artistic movements, and had ample knowledge of ancient cultures and the literatures of various countries and epochs.