The Mysterious Charm of Rafael Coronel - 2019

A tribute and a perfect pretext to explore the fantastic universe of one of the most important visual artists that Mexico has produced.

Galería de los sapos has had the honor of presenting Rafael Coronel's El Misterioso Encanto, a tribute and a perfect pretext to explore the fantastic universe of one of the most important visual artists that Mexico has produced.

Coronel, was born in the city of Zacatecas on October 24, 1931. In the country's capital, he studied architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and in 1952 he won the first prize in the Plastic Arts Contest held by the Institute of the Mexican Youth. Throughout four decades of fruitful creative work, he exhibited his work individually and collectively in the five continents, highlighting the VIII Biennial of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in which he obtained the “Córdoba” Award for the Best Young Latin American Painter in 1965 , and the First International Biennial of Figurative Painting in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan in 1974, in which he received the First Prize.

Among oils, acrylics, sculptures and a graphic compendium made up of giclées and serigraphs of his most outstanding works; Rafael Coronel has been honored at Galería de los Sapos.

The theme of his work often provokes discussion to which artistic current he belongs, Neo-Romanticism or contemporary Mexicanism, since it contains characteristics of both. Recognized for his dreamism, Coronel became a patient and lonely painter, he was an incurable lover of masks and ancient rituals, elements that gave sharpness to the works he painted in his last three decades as an artist, which stand out in this exhibition. where the enigmatic beings who wear black robes and hoods are the protagonists.

Rafael Coronel was and will continue to be considered one of the greatest artists that has made Mexico to the world and one of the most defined representatives of New Mexican Expressionism.