Katzew, Ilona 1965-

PERSONAL:

Born December 11, 1965.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036.

CAREER:

Art curator and writer. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, associate curator of Latin American art.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with John A. Farmer) A Hemispheric Venture: Thirty-five Years of Culture at the Americas Society, 1965-2000 = Una Aventura Hemisferica: Treinta y Cinco Anos de Cultura en La Americas Society, 1965-2000, Americas Society (New York, NY), 2000.

Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2004.

Una Visión del México del Siglo de Las Luces: La Codificación de Joaquín Antonio de Basa's: Origen, Costumbres y Estado Presente de Mexicanos y Filipinos, Landucci (Mexico City, Mexico), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ilona Katzew is an art curator and writer. One of the world's leading authorities on casta painting, she is the author of Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. Casta painting—casta translates as caste—is a genre of painting that originated in colonial Mexico. Created as sets of consecutive images, the works portray racial mixing among the main groups that inhabited the colony, namely Indians, Spaniards, and Africans. In her book, the author examines these paintings within a social and historical context and discusses how the paintings' meanings changed according to the times and shifting colonial politics. "For example, while early paintings, those from roughly 1700 to 1760, stress the affluence of the colony and embody a collective image of self pride, later works, from about 1760 to 1790, place more emphasis on stratification and the colony's means of production by depicting a host of trades that closely parallel issues raised by contemporary reformers," wrote a contributor to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Web site in an article about the book and exhibit of the same name.

In her book, the author looks at how casta painting developed historically and why race became the subject of a pictorial genre that spanned a complete century. Writing in the Historian, Jose C. Moya pointed out that the author "explains that although the term casta theoretically applied to all ‘castes’ or ethnoracial groups in colonial Mexico, including the colonizers, in practice it came to designate people of mixed racial origin."

Casta Painting examines who commissioned and collected the paintings, which included art collectors from the Roman Catholic Church and royalty. Looking into what the works meant to contemporary audiences, the author analyzes the racial dynamics in Mexico during the eighteenth century and how identity was formed in the colonial era of Mexico. Writing in Booklist, Donna Seaman noted that these "paintings are of interest not only because they record a racial hierarchy but also because they provide a catalog of often overlooked cultural traditions."

The author begins her book by looking at the visual traditions and historiography of the painters and paintings. Her next chapter is titled "‘A Marvelous Variety of Colors?’: Racial Ideology and the Sistema de Castas." Next, she examines casta paintings in the era of Bourbon Reform from 1760-1790. Her fifth chapter is titled "The Theatre of Marvels: Paintings in the Textual Microcosmos." Katzew concludes her book with a look at the many meanings represented within the genre of casta paintings. The book includes three hundred illustrations, including black-and-white and color reproductions.

In a review of Casta Painting in Library Journal, Sylvia Andrews referred to the book as "a valuable interdisciplinary study." Art Bulletin contributor Thomas B.F. Cummins commended the author for laying a strong historical groundwork for her examination of casta paintings and the ways these paintings eventually developed into a specific genre. Cummins went on to write in his review: "By reading Katzew …, one comes away with a much better understanding of the tremendous complexities of art production in eighteenth-century New Spain," adding later in the same review: "Katzew's book will be the major source for years to come for anyone who wishes to study casta painting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Katzew, Ilona, Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2004.

PERIODICALS

Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, July 2005, Matthew Restall, review of Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, p. 122.

Art Bulletin, March, 2006, Thomas B.F. Cummins, review of Casta Painting, p. 185.

Booklist, May 15, 2004, Donna Seaman, review of Casta Painting, p. 1589.

Choice, October 2004, C.B. Talbot, review of Casta Painting, p. 284.

Hispanic American Historical Review, May 2006, Gabriel Haslip-Viera, review of Casta Painting, p. 364.

Historian, fall, 2005, Jose C. Moya, review of Casta Painting, p. 525.

Library Journal, June 15, 2004, Sylvia Andrews, review of Casta Painting, p. 67.

ONLINE

Los Angeles County Museum of Art Web site,http://www.lacma.org/ (March 26, 2008), "Mexico's Rich History of Interracial Families Revealed by Paintings on Display at LACMA."

Yale University Press,http://yalepress.yale.edu/ (March 25, 2008), overview of Casta Painting.