1967
Watercolour on paper
h28 x w48 cm (excluding frame)
h39 x 59 cm (including frame)

José Jesús Francisco Zúñiga Chavarría (1912 – 1998) was a Costa Rican-born Mexican artist, known both for his painting and his sculpture. Journalist Fernando González Gortázar lists Zúñiga as one of the 100 most notable Mexicans of the 20th century, while the Encyclopædia Britannica calls him “perhaps the best sculptor” of the Mexican political modern style. In 1926 he enrolled in the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Mexico, but left the following year to continue on his own. As part of his self-study, he studied German Expressionism and the writings of Alexander Heilmayer, through which he learned of the work of sculptors, Aristide Maillol and Auguste Rodin. Zúñiga’s painting and sculpting work began receiving recognition in 1929. His first stone sculpture won second prize at the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes. In 1936 he immigrated to Mexico. In 1958 he was awarded the first prize in sculpture from the Mexican National Institute of Fine Arts. In the 1940s, the New York Museum of Modern Art acquired the sculpture Cabeza de niño totonaca and the Metropolitan Museum of Art requested two of his drawings. Major individual exhibitions during his career include the Bernard Lewin Gallery in Los Angeles in 1965, a retrospective at the Museo de Arte Moderno in 1969 and various exhibitions in Europe in the 1980s.

Messums Estimate: £8000 – £12000