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Story

The Valley of Mexico

In 1855 the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City hired an Italian painter, Eugenio Landesio, to teach landscape. His best pupil, José María Velasco, took up his teacher's subjects and went on to teach at the academy for decades. A generation later Saturnino Herrán trained there too, and turned from the land itself to the people and traditions of Mexico. Three painters from one school, and one valley.

Sources: Wikipedia: Academy of San CarlosWikipedia: Eugenio LandesioWikipedia: Saturnino Herrán

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1

Eugenio Landesio came from Rome in 1855 to teach landscape and perspective at Mexico City's Academy of San Carlos. He made his students study rocks, plants and skies one by one before composing a picture, and one of them, José María Velasco, stood out from his first days in class.

Sources: WikipediaWikipedia (Spanish)
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2

By 1875 José María Velasco was 35 and married. His teacher Landesio had resigned from the academy rather than swear loyalty to Mexico's Reform Laws, and Velasco would take over the landscape chair two years later. He also published his own research in botany and zoology.

Sources: Wikipedia (Spanish)Wikipedia
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Inspired by

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3

Saturnino Herrán moved to Mexico City at sixteen after his father's death, working at a telegraph office to support his mother while he studied at San Carlos. By 1913 he was in his mid-twenties, teaching drawing and set on painting the people and traditions of Mexico.

Sources: WikipediaGetty ULAN
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The same place

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