Mexican1840–1912
José María Velasco
Often called the greatest artist of Mexico's Academy of San Carlos, where he trained under the Italian landscape painter Eugenio Landesio and later taught for decades. He studied plants, animals and clouds with a scientist's care, and his landscapes represented Mexico at world's fairs from Philadelphia to Paris. The young Diego Rivera was among his students.
A life in paintings
- 1840Born
- 1875
- 1912Died
Landesio, hired in 1855 to teach landscape and perspective at the Academy of San Carlos, taught Velasco there and wrote that he saw his great aptitude in his first days in class. He was a witness at Velasco's 1868 wedding, and when Landesio resigned in 1873 he wanted Velasco to succeed him; Velasco took the landscape chair in 1877.
Velasco taught at the Academy of San Carlos for decades, and the young Diego Rivera was among his pupils there before Rivera left for Europe in 1907.
Circles
School · Mexico City · 1781
Academy of San Carlos
Mexico's national art academy (later the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes). Landesio taught landscape there 1855–1873; Velasco studied there and taught perspective (1868–1902) and landscape (from 1877); Herrán studied there from 1904 under Fabrés, Gedovius and Ruelas; Ramos Martínez studied there on a scholarship and was its director by 1913.
Where to see them
Museo Nacional de Arte
Mexico City
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