SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The San Antonio Museum of Art is presenting Carlos M閞ida: Selections From the Permanent Collection, July 8, 2016 through January 29, 2017 in the Golden Gallery. This small exhibition features 30 works that express M閞ida’s diversity of themes and media, and show his progression as an artist. This selection is from the Museum’s archives.

“M閞ida is one of the first artists to fuse European modern painting to Latin American themes,” said Curator of Latin American Art Marion Oettinger. “It’s exciting to share these works from the Museum’s archives with the public.”

Born in Guatemala, M閞ida paid homage to his own preColumbian roots through figurative illustrations of the ancient Maya world and the indigenous populations of his youth. He then went on to become one of Mexico's first successful abstract artists. M閞ida lived and worked in Mexico for much of his life but was inspired by his travels in Europe. In 1910, he visited Paris and became intrigued by the avant-garde artists, such as Modigliani and Picasso. M閞ida returned to Europe in the late 1920s, and fell under the influence of Surrealism, Constructivism, and Geometric Abstraction.

The Museum has acquired excellent examples of M閞ida’s works, and its collection illustrates the artist’s broad diversity of themes and media –from his Images of Guatemala (1925-27) to his Birds of Paradise (1936) and his The Three Kings (1965). In 2014, the Museum acquired an important set of M閞ida’s original gouaches, which were used to create the artist’s popular portfolio Mexican Costume (1941) of 25 serigraphs. Lastly, the large and impressive glass mosaic mural that M閞ida made for Hemisfair’68 has been reinstalled in the newly refurbished Convention Center.

The exhibition is free with general admission through January 29, 2017.