A TRAVELER IN MEXICO: A RENDEZVOUS WITH WRITER ROSEMARY SULLIVAN C.M. MAYO Originally published in Inside Mexico, March 2009
Mexico City’s Coyoacán neighborhood has become inextricably linked with the Surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, so what better place to rendezvous with poet, writer, and biographer of Surrealists, Rosemary Sullivan? A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Sullivan had just alighted in Mexico City and would soon be on her way to meet with Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, when we met over cappuccinos at the sun-drenched Café Moheli to talk about her latest book.
Villa Air-Bel: World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseilleis a page-turner of a deeply researched history about the rescue of artists and intellectuals trapped as the Nazis closed in. The effort, fomented by the New York-based Emergency Rescue Committee and led by their agent in Marseilles, Varian Fry, managed to save André Breton, Marc Chagall, and Max Ernst, among others, and found refuge for them in the United States. But some came to Mexico. These included the Russian novelist Victor Serge, and his son Vlady; and most famously, Surrealist painters Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, who (along with Frida Kahlo), are today among Mexico’s most revered artists. For this reason, Villa Air-Bel is a work important to the history of modern art in Mexico.
But the book’s connection to Mexico goes deeper.
“Villa Air-Bel started here,” Sullivan said. She explained that, back in 1995, she had come to Mexico City to write about the intense friendship of three women artists Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and the Canadian poet P.K. Page (also known as the painter Pat Irwin), which commenced in 1960 when Page, already the author of several books and a winner of Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Award, arrived with her husband, Arthur Irwin, then Canada’s ambassador to Mexico.
Sullivan, then two years out of graduate school, met Page in Victoria in 1974. As Sullivan recalls in the essay “Three Travellers in Mexico,” “For me P.K. is one of the searchers, ahead of the rest of us, throwing back clues. She encouraged me to believe I might become a writer.” Varo had died of a heart attack in 1963. But thanks to an introduction from Page, Sullivan met Carrington in Mexico City.
The English-born Leonora Carrington had a harrowing but triumphant story. She was living in France when the Germans invaded. Her lover, the Surrealist painter Max Ernst, was arrested, first as an enemy alien and then a second time as an enemy of the Nazis. Leonora fled to Spain, where she had a mental collapse and was put in an insane asylum, a searing experience she wrote about in The House of Fear: Notes from Down Below. Her family got her out, but thinking they wanted to put her in another asylum in South Africa, she escaped in Lisbon en route. Ernst, miraculously, reappeared in Lisbon, but the pair parted ways, Ernst going to New York with Peggy Guggenheim, and Leonora, in a marriage of convenience to her rescuer, Mexican diplomat-poet Renato Leduc, to Mexico. Here she remarried, produced two sons, and an extraordinary body of work as a painter, sculptor, poet and writer. (Still active in her 90s, last month [February 2009] Carrington attended an event in her honor at Mexico City’s Museo José Luis Cuevas.)
In 1995, Carrington showed Sullivan some of Varo’s playfully dreamlike and delicately-rendered paintings. Later, while reading Unexpected Journeys, Janet A. Kaplan’s biography of Varo, Sullivan came upon the story of Varian Fry and the Villa Bel-Air, a château outside Marseille where so many of the outstanding figures involved either lived or visited. For a time, though they were in terrible danger and lacked such basics as coal and meat, with André Breton hosting a Sunday open house and leading Surrealist games in the drawing room, Villa Air-Bel had all the joyous spirit of an artists colony.
While in Mexico City that time, Sullivan also wrote the short story that became the nucleus of Labyrinth of Desire, an exploration of the myths women live out when they fall in love, from Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara (“Don Juan / Doña Juana”), to Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (“Self-Portrait with Mirrors”). In that short story, Sullivan said, “The man is named Varian, but just because I loved the name. I never imagined I’d write this book! He just sat at the bottom of my mind…”
While reading The Quiet American, Andy Marino’s biography of Varian Fry, Sullivan saw the image that made her decide to write about the refugee artists and intellectuals and their rescuers. In the photo, like a pair of children, Fry and Consuelo de Saint Exupéry perch high in the python-like branches of an plane tree.
“This was war-time France!” Sullivan exclaimed. “What were they doing in the tree?” They were hanging paintings. “That refusal to be cowed by Fascism… “
But how to tell such a huge and sprawling story? In a flash, Sullivan realized that she could organize it around a year in the life of Villa Air-Bel.
Other than Carrington, however, few of those who had been at Villa Air-Bel were still alive.
One of the most important sources had to be Vlady Serge, the painter who, as a young man had been rescued from France along with his father. From Canada, Sullivan made an appointment for an interview in Cuernavaca, where he had his house and studio. She then flew to Mexico. She settled into Las Mañanitas hotel, and when she telephoned that she was on her way, she was informed he was not there. It turned out Serge had been rushed to the hospital with a fatal stroke. Sullivan had missed him by a matter of minutes; nonetheless, he had left her detailed instructions on whom to meet and where to find archives.
Here in Coyoacan’s Café Moheli, the snortle of the cappuccino machine interlaced with birdsong, conversations, and the occasional passing car, I said, what had most struck me about Villa Air-Bel was the way she described the confusion at the time, and how, throughout the 1930s, people had a sense of normalcy, until—I quoted her—”in a moment, the world collapsed like a burnt husk.”
“I meant people to read this book in terms of now,” Sullivan said. “Because it can always happen.”
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me by simply clicking here.
It was in 2012, when I started on my still in-progress book about Far West Texas, that I first encountered the paintings of Xavier González in the Museum of the Big Bend on the Sul Ross University Campus in Alpine, Texas. I was there to see “The Lost Colony,” an exhibition of works by painters associated with the summer Art Colony of the Sul Ross College (now Sul Ross State University). The works were from 1921-1950; the Art Colony, formally so-called, spanned the years 1932-1950.
Curator Mary Bones gave me a fascinating interview about “The Lost Colony,” which you can listen to here.)
“MOONLIGHT OVER THE CHISOS,” 1934
The artwork by Xavier González that most enchanted me was his magnificent “Moonlight Over the Chisos” of 1934. It was not in the show itself, however, but tucked into the top of the stairwell leading down to the museum’s map collection– not an ideal location, but no doubt one of the few available walls large enough to accommodate the massive 6 x 14 feet canvas.
“Moonlight Over the Chisos” is in the tradition of Mexican murals of the 1930s, although technically not a mural, as it is painted on canvas. (In no way do these two photos, snapped with my iPhone and pasted together with a screenshot, do this masterpiece justice. Alas, the painting is so large, I couldn’t back up far enough to fit the whole of it into one shot.)
(Dear reader, if you haven’t hiked the Chisos, you have yet to live.)
XAVIER GONZÁLEZ IN MEXICO CITY (RESEARCH UNDERWAY…)
What also caught my attention was that González had studied art in Mexico City and precisely during the time of great muralists, among them, Diego Rivera. Mary Bones told me: “Xavier González spent many summers down in Mexico and Mexico City looking at the muralists.”
Born in Almería, Spain in 1898, as a child Xavier González immigrated with his family to Mexico.
An important influence on his development as an artist was his maternal uncle, the academic painter José Arpa (1858-1952), a native of Spain who later divided his time between Mexico City and San Antonio– and became a leading figure in the art community of the latter, running an art school out of the Witte Museum. According to the notes for “The Three Worlds of Jose Arpa y Perea” exhibition of 2015 from the website of the San Antonio Museum of Art, Arpa won the Rome Prize three times and had been offered the directorship of the Academia de San Carlos, but instead worked independently. In my notes from a visit to González’s archive in the Smithsonian (box 4, unattributed article):
“[José Arpa] received his early art training at the School of Fine Arts in Seville… His first success was in 1891, when his painting of Don Miguel de Manarra won first prize in the Madrid exhibition. Travels in Africa and Europe followed… the Spanish government sent for of his paintings to the first World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1893 as representative of the best of Spain…. shortly after that time the Mexican government sent a man-of-war to Spain and brought him to Mexico to assume charge of the academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City. He later declined the appointment, but remained for many years becoming enthralled with the light and color and movement of the country…”
At age thirteen (circa 1911) Xavier González was studying at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City. This was the same time that 15 year old David Siquieros, who was to became one of Mexico’s greatest muralists, was also beginning his studies at San Carlos. (Did they take the same classes?)
In 1913 the violent stage Revolution intervened… I’m still a little foggy on the details of González’s early life…
The Lost Colony catalog notes that González studied and worked as a mechanical engineer. In 1922 he was working in Iowa for a railroad. Later he studied at night and graduated from the Chicago Art Institute. In 1925, he was assisting his uncle José Arpa in his art school in San Antonio’s Witte Museum and from 1927-29 he was teaching classes himself. González became a US citizen in 1930 and the following year took a faculty position at Sophie Newcomb, the women’s college now folded into Tulane University in New Orleans.
From “The Lost Colony” catalog:
“…much of the work was to be done en plein air with frequent trips to the Davis and Chisos Mountains”
> 1932 González conducted the first summer Art Colony at Sul Ross (along with Julius Woeltz and Aline Rather) > 1933 González in Paris, and also Mexico City (on a leave of absence from Sophie Newcomb College.) > 1934-1939 González conducted sessions of the summer Art Colony. > 1935 González married his student Ethel Edwards.
I hope to be able to dig into the archives at the Academia de San Carlos to find out when exactly González attended and with whom he studied. I am also curious to learn why his uncle José Arpa, after coming all the way from Spain, did not take the helm at the Academia de San Carlos.
#
A VISIT TO THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS (Not to be confused with the Museo San Carlos, different building, different neighborhood. Uyy, Mexico City is endlessly endless.)
You’ll find the Antigua Academia de San Carlos a short walk behind the National Palace, at the corner of Moneda and Academia Streets (Calle Moneda y Calle Academia). This GIF shows my approach from Moneda, the National Palace along the right, then the terracotta-colored neoclassic Italianate façade of the Academia de San Carlos.
APPROACHING THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA SAN CARLOS FROM CALLE MONEDA
The site of the Academia de San Carlos has been continually occupied for almost 500 years. The land once backed the Aztec emperor Moctezuma’s palace, Casas Nuevas. After the Conquest the parcel became the property of the Church; the original building arose as a hospital specializing in syphilis patients.
In the late 18th century King Carlos III sent his chief engraver to New Spain– Mexico wasn’t yet Mexico– to establish an academy and so improve the production of coins– hence the Academia de San Carlos’ location, only steps from the Casa de Moneda, the mint for the colony which was founded in 1535.
Classes began in 1781 and the Academia de las Nobles Artes de San Carlos de la Nueva España, offering instruction in architecture, engraving, painting, and sculpture, was officially inaugurated in 1785.
The oldest fine arts academy in the Americas, San Carlos has been in almost continuous operation for 235 years. It closed in 1822, during the cash-strapped years of the First Empire, and not until 1843 did it reopen, when Santa Anna, in a moment of inspiration, joined it to the lottery which became known as the Lotería de San Carlos. According to the Mexican Lottery website (my translation):
“The San Carlos Lottery utilized its income to acquire important artworks, provide scholarships for the Academia de San Carlos, and to bring important teachers to Mexico among them, the painter Pelegrín Clave, sculptor Manuel Vilar, landscape painter Eugenio Landesio and architect Javier Cavallari… Thanks to this lottery’s economic success it was possible to address other large and urgent needs of the general population in a time of foreign invasions and civil wars that left in the country in circumstances of chronic poverty.”
My 49 second video below shows the entrance, then the central patio before “Winged Victory” and brief look at glass dome which was installed by Antonio Rivas Mercado in 1913. According to Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo in I Speak of the City: Mexico City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century(high recommended):
“Antonio Rivas Mercado was one of the few Mexican architects favored with contracts for major national construction projects. But he was a French-trained architect, a follower of the Paris beaux-arts style, who had lived in London and Paris for many years.” (p. 22)
The dome was manufactured in France. Note the Art Nouveau ojos de buey or oval windows, also designed by Rivas Mercado for the section added to help support the dome’s weight. Part of the tour included a jazz concert by Los Cuatro Saxofones (The Four Saxophones).
Here is a much better video made by the university (about 7 minutes, in Spanish):
Winged Victory represents the goddess Nike. Most Mexicans, familiar with the American sports shoe brand, pronounce Nike to rhyme with bike. Professor Díaz Mendieta set his audience straight. In Spanish Nike is pronounced Nee-keh. She is the symbol of the Academia de San Carlos. The other 19th century plaster casts of iconic Greek and Renaissance sculptures, including Michelangelo’s Moses and head of David, are not for decoration but for the students to copy.
This handsome gallery of walnut wood and gold leaf features a ceiling decorated with portraits of artists and scientists including Copernicus and Raphael. A few of the heads fell off during the 1985 earthquake. There was little light by this time, alas; the colors in this room are actually rich and brilliant.
And this is the Centennial Gallery, decorated in the then fashionable Frenchified festoonerie for the academy’s 100th anniversary:
Voilà, Weltschmerzerie and sparkly donuts:
Finally, here is a GIF of Professor Díaz Mendieta wrapping up the tour in the torreo or bullring, an original classroom. The torreo was used not for making art but teaching theory and history of art. No doubt Diego Rivera addressed students here, as did his professor, Santiago Rebull, and many more in a long list of Mexico’s greatest artists.
PROFESSOR DANTE DIAZ MENDIETA IN EL TORREO, OR THE BULLRING, THE CLASSROOM AT THE ANTIGUA ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS
The desks are notably narrower than in classrooms today. The room (was it windowless?) felt a smidge creepy.
SIDEBAR (FROM ONE VERY MACHO MUNDO): A FEW OF THE NOTABLE ARTISTS OF THE ACADEMIA DE SAN CARLOS, BY DATE OF BIRTH
MANUEL TOLSA, AN ARCHITECT AND SCULPTOR WHO MERITS AT LEAST 378 BLOG POSTS
The great glass dome had gone dark when Professor Díaz Mendieta concluded on the wicked note that of course there are ghosts in here: a little girl who laughs; loud knocks; and, as the nightwatchman swears, on occasion in the wee hours of the night, moving from one side of the entrance foyer and disappearing into the opposite wall, a procession of monks holding torchlights.
Recently the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) conducted an excavation that turned up 17 bodies. Presumably these were not of art students but syphilis patients of the 18th, 17th, or even 16th century.
¿Y LA FRIDA?
It’s impossible to talk about Mexican artists without mentioning Frida Kahlo. No, Professor Díaz Mendieta answered the question, Frida did not take classes at the Academia de San Carlos; at that time it was for men only, but Frida hung out here (andaba aquí) with her sweetheart, Diego Rivera.
In a future blog post I will talking about González’s wife Ethel Edwards; also about noted Texas regionalist painter Julius Woeltz (1911-1956), a student of González’s who taught at the summer art colony at Sul Ross and who accompanied González on some of his trips to paint in Mexico City in 1934 and 1935. (Woeltz also served as best man at González’s wedding.) I hope to also unearth more about Woeltz in the archives of the Academia de San Carlos. Stay tuned. Curator Mary Bones also talks about these and many other artists of the “Lost Colony” in my “Marfa Mondays” podcast interview. Again, that recording and transcript are available free here.
#
HOW TO GET THE TOUR
On the last Wednesday of every month, at 7 PM, UNAM art history professor Dante Díaz Mendieta offers a free tour, no reservations required. (In Spanish, of course.) Check for updates on the Facebook pages “Difusión San Carlos” or “GestionCulturalSanCarlos” or call tel. 5522-0630 ext 228.
