Ureña, Felipe (?–c. 1773)

Felipe Ureña (d. after 1773), Mexican sculptor, retablo master. Ureña was largely responsible for the spreading of estípite baroque throughout New Spain, in places very distant from Mexico City. His decoration of the sacristy of the Church of San Francisco in Toluca, dedicated in 1729, is the first native work in the style. Ureña had what must have been a sizable workshop in Mexico City, but he also executed retablos and architectural projects in Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, Durango, Oaxaca, and elsewhere. His most famous work, still extant, is the Jesuit church La Compañía in Guanajuato, on which he labored between 1747 and 1765, with interruptions for other projects. Fragments of his wood sculpture exist in Durango.

See alsoArchitecture .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clara Bargellini, La arquitectura de la plata (1991), pp. 138-140.

Additional Bibliography

Halcon, Fátima. "Arquitecutra y retablística novohispana: las obras de Felipe de Ureña en Oaxaca." Archivo Español de Arte 274 (1996): 171-182.

Villegas, Víctor Manuel, René Taylor, and Fernando Chueca Goitia. Churriguera y Felipe de Ureña en Toluca: La Sacristía del Convento Franciscano de la Asunción de Toluca, los churriguera hasta Pedro Ribera y sus obras, la Ermita de Santa María del Puerto de Madrid: La restauración de la sacristyía. Toluca, Mexico: Gobierno Constitucional del Estado de México and Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, 1981.

                                        Clara Bargellini