José Luis Cuevas

Mexico City  Mexico 1933

A master draftsman, Jose Luis Cuevas played a pivotal role in Latin America’s drawing and printmaking renaissance of the sixties and seventies. He is also associated with Latin America’s neofigurative movement, along with artists such as Fernando Botero and Antonio Segui. Cuevas was born in Mexico City in 1933. By the age of fourteen, he had illustrated numerous periodicals and books and had had his first exhibition in Mexico City. In 1953 Cuevas published La cortina del nopal (The Cactus Curtain), an article condemning aspects of the Mexican Mural movement and advocating greater artistic freedom. This philosophy inspired the founding in 1960 of the group Nueva Presencia, which he joined for a brief time. It promoted individual expression and figurative art reflecting the contemporary human condition.