Ruiz, Antonio (1897–1964)

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Ruiz, Antonio (1897–1964)

Antonio Ruiz (b. 1897; d. 9 October 1964), Mexican painter, muralist, theater and movie set designer, art teacher, and arts administrator. Ruiz was born in Texcoco and studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Mexico City. In 1926 he went to Hollywood to study set design, and he assisted in painting four murals for Pacific House, in San Francisco. Returning to Mexico in 1929, in 1932 he founded the first workshop on technical maquettes at the School of Engineering and Architecture. In 1938 he became professor of set design and perspective in the National School of the Plastic Arts. From 1942 to 1954 he designed sets for Mexico City theaters, a film company, and some ballets. He died in Mexico City.

Ruiz is known for his very small, carefully composed, and meticulously painted pictures. Each is full of details that add to the meaning of the subjects portrayed. His use of perspective in some of his pictures to create illusions of great depth demonstrates his knowledge of architecture and stage design. As a painter of the Mexican School, he depicted the people of Mexico at work, at leisure, window shopping, performing, courting, and commemorating national holidays. In some cases, the Mexicans are presented as part of a complex world in which the modern mingles with the past. Ruiz also satirized, in a humorous way, the failings of those who cannot overcome their limitations, for example, the nouveau riche who acquire worldly possessions but not good taste, an aspiring opera singer without talent, and an orator without an audience or a message to deliver.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Exposición homenaje Antonio M. Ruiz (1966).

Jacinto Quirarte, "Mexican and Mexican American Artists in the United States: 1920–1970," in The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920–1970, catalogue of The Bronx Museum of the Arts (1988), pp. 38-39, and Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries (1990), pp. 651-661.