Jose Luis Cuevas (b. 1934)

In the aftermath of the Second World War, a new generation of Mexican artists started to resist the institutionalization of the Mexican School and the didacticism of the muralist movement, which they felt to be too insular and propagandistic. Drawing influence from the graphic art of Goya and Picasso, the young artists of La Ruptura, led by Jos Luis Cuevas and Pedro Coronel, reacted against what Cuevas referred to as the "Cactus Curtain" and declared their art to be "against vulgarity and mediocrity. Against superficiality and conformity. Against the standardized opinions that are parroted over and over again." Protesting against this "crude, limited, provincial, nationalistic Mexico," Cuevas held out hope for a "true, universal Mexico, open to the whole world without losing its own essential characteristics . . . What I want in my country's art are broad highways leading out to the rest of the world, rather than narrow trails connecting one adobe
village with another"(J. L. Cuevas, "The Cactus Curtain," in P. Frank, ed., Readings in Modern Latin American Art, New Haven, 2004, p. 192.) Champions of artistic freedom, this nascent avant garde opened Mexico to international trends, from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, and catalyzed the neofiguration of the 1950s, which saw the return to an expressionistic portrayal of the human figure in the work of Cuevas and his contemporaries.