From 29 March to 17 August 2025, the Nationwide Gallery in London presents the exhibition “José María Velasco: A View of Mexico”
Supply: Nationwide Gallery · Picture: José María Velasco, ‘Vista de la fábrica de hilados La Carolina (Puebla)’, Nationwide Gallery of Prague © Nationwide Gallery of Prague / picture by Andrea Rývová
The primary monographic exhibition within the UK dedicated to José María Velasco (1840–1912), Mexico’s most celebrated Nineteenth-century painter, will happen on the Nationwide Gallery early subsequent 12 months (29 March – 17 August 2025).
José María Velasco: A View of Mexico, the primary ever devoted to a Latin American artist on the Nationwide Gallery, coincides with the two hundredth anniversary of the institution of diplomatic relations between the UK and Mexico.
José María Velasco is famed for his monumental work of the Valle de México, the world surrounding Mexico Metropolis, the nation’s capital. Painted throughout many years of great social change, his exact but lyrical works depicted Mexico’s magnificent surroundings and speedy industrialisation.
Whereas Velasco, as one among Mexico’s most outstanding artists, confirmed work in Europe and the US throughout his lifetime and nonetheless enjoys nice prominence in his residence nation, he’s not well-known overseas. There isn’t any portray by Velasco in a UK public assortment and the final large-scale exhibition dedicated to him outdoors Mexico was held in 1976 (in San Antonio and Austin, Texas), nearly 50 years in the past.
Velasco obtained many distinctions as Mexico’s consultant at quite a few worldwide exhibitions within the Eighteen Eighties and Nineties. However he was rather more than only a painter of the nation. A real polymath, he was additionally a botanist, naturalist, and geologist with extremely developed pursuits in each Mesoamerican and trendy historical past. He approached drawing and portray not solely searching for magnificence but additionally as a part of a quasi-scientific course of, in search of out a number of methods to develop and categorical empirical data. His diversified work discover the connection between totally different cultures, historical and trendy, Mexico’s mountainous terrain, natural world, and the affect of industrialisation on the panorama. This exhibition will think about these wide-ranging pursuits and their affect on his artwork.
