About the artist:
Born in Zacatecas, Zac. Mexico in 1931. He has presented a number of solo exhibitions in galleries and major international museums, among others, discussed in Biennial of San Paulo, Brazil Sforsesco Castello in Milan, Italy, Royal Museum of Art in Brussels, Belgium, The Contemporaries, New York, United States The Museum of Modern Art in New York, United States Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico, Mex. Museum of Modern Art, Mexico, Mex. Have written about his work art critics, writers and journalists of renown. It has also received important awards and recognitions for his creative work worldwide. In 1990 he created the Rafael Coronel Museum is located in the capital Zacatecas, Mexico, his hometown. Baby brother of Pedro Coronel, Rafael felt artistic inclinations since he was really young. He studed in La Escuela Nacional de Pintura y Escultura La Esmeralda, and he quickly developed a unique artistic vocabulary. His paintings are about popular themes, even though, we can not say that his pieces are from the spontaneous things. The vocation of being a painter was something hereditary for Rafael. His grandfather used to decorate churches, hi used to paint the decorations all over the walls of the churches. When his father told him that pedro, his brother, was studying to become a painter in Mexico city, he though it was one of the gratests wastes of time ever, because they got no money from painting, even the greatest painters in Mexico had to appeal to other jobs. Rafael wasn't the teenager that dreamed to become a soccer player anymore, although he always liked to draw he thought that "The art gave no money to eat, that painting was a complement for other jobs". He didn't even know that there were some professional painters. When Rafael went to Mexico city he wanted to be a soccer player, a player for the América, but he promised he would study to become a counter. When he arrived to the D.F., he started to like architecture. In 1952 he won a painting contest. The piece that gave him the victory was the Mujer De Jerez, a piece of art done with crayons, since he had no money to buy better things. he won a scholarship of 300 pesos a month. After winning the contest he stated:"I betrayed my father, but I've done goods for the country". For the scholarship to be effective, he had to study in some painting school, so he decided to enter to "La Esmeralda", two months later he was expelled for disobeying the teachers. The intentions of Rafael during that time was to show the latinoamerican people without garnishing them like Diego Rivera, Siqueiros Banderas, or like José Clemente Orozco. When you leave the painting alone, the human figure reaches its climax point, to the purest representation of the human being, like the paintings of Rembrandt. Coronel became a lonely man, in 1969 his wife Ruth died, son of Diego Rivera and Lupe Marín, and mother of his only son, Juan Coronel. He has had some girlfriends, and he has traveled around the world next to them. Traveling helps him to "Clear his vision about Mexico and makes my painting instincts, and makes me be about in front of the canvas with my brush, painting and painting". He wasn't doing his weekly parties where half Mexico accuded to. Rafael Worked 20 years in his uncle´s workshop, he said that he has made his biggest jobs there. He lived in the city of Cuernavaca since the year 1981. Rafael worked for twenty years in the studio of his father, says there made the largest plastic production has been achieved. Since 1981 lives in the city of Cuernavaca, in a house surrounded by a wall full of graffiti that appears to protect a vacant lot. On the occasion of his 80th birthday in September 2011 Fine Arts opened in "retro-futuristic", an exhibition of 109 works that Raphael created 18 that year. These works break with earlier work by Colonel, because "in the same figuration, there are some characters decrepit. The interesting thing is that it puts the focus on the end of life of women and men in old age is different because we were used to see old age redeemed; in these tables, the present old age as decline, never explored that part, "said Juan Coronel Rivera, the son of the artist. All stages in the creative life are represented in retrofuturism Colonel, not just the time when performing works closely related to Spanish painting, as most of the audience remembers. In the sample there are also sculptures, drawings and works that have never been exhibited. Retrofuturism also presented at the Museo Rafael Coronel in Zacatecas and Monterrey MARCO. The convent of San Francisco was the first to be founded in the province of Zacatecas in the year 1567, built as his temple. On December 7, 1648 the Temple was burned, and the March 5, 1949 started reconstruction. Its rooms preserves a collection of more than 16 000 pieces, including masks, drawings, pots, terracotta, Prehispanic objects, puppets, votive offerings, pictures, crafts, musical instruments and colonial furniture. His collection of masks is considered the largest in the world. It also has a collection of works by Diego Rivera, among which is the study of child self-portrait of Diego's mural Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park, work is on permanent display at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera in the city of Mexico. The museum shows an exhibition that includes topics such as masks, the devil, Lent, Easter, Easter, the old dance, deer dance, animals, etc.. These masks are works of the artist. However most of the exhibits displayed in the museum collections show that he had, as is the pot room, where many pre-Hispanic figures are shown in a wide exposure. In the shoot-Rosette room displays a collection of puppets from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rafael Coronel passed away May 7th, 2019.
