Currently indexing

Four Female Figures (also Nudes; Bath; Four Feminine Figures), 1946

1946

Born Ixtlahuaca, Mexico, 1901; died Norman, Oklahoma, 1976

A key figure in the Mexican Modern art movement, Amero worked alongside José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros as a member of the first group of muralists to receive commissions after the Mexican Revolution (1910‒1920). Like many Mexican artists, he divided his career between his home country and the United States, working as an illustrator and designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, as head of the lithography workshop at EBNA (Escuela Nacional de Biblioteconomía y Archivonomía) in Mexico City, as an educator at the Florence Cane School of Art in New York, and as a muralist for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1940, he joined the University of Washington on a Walker Ames Fellowship, followed by a move to the Cornish School of the Arts in 1943. With its jewel-toned palette, compressed space, and clearly delineated, monumental figures, his work brings the spirit of Mexican muralism to the Pacific Northwest.

Oil on canvas

30 1/2 x 26 1/2 in. (77.5 x 67.3 cm)

Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

46.179

Provenance: the artist; purchased by the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, August 14, 1946

Photo: Susan Cole

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Thirty-second Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists, October 2 - November 3, 1946. Catalogue no. 1 [erroneously titled Three Women, not for sale; honorable mention in oil].

Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, New Accessions USA, July 12 - September 5, 1948. Catalogue no. 47 [as Nudes].

Mexico City, Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, Resisting Oblivion, November 26, 2008 - March 8, 2009 (Oaxaca, Museo de Artes Graficas, March 27-May 8, 2009). No catalogue.

Published ReferencesLee, Robert Ormond. “As Art is Judged in Seattle,” Seattle Times, November 17, 1946: p. 87, reproduced [erroneously titled Three Women].

Zúñiga, Ariel. Emilio Amero: A Liminal Modernist. Mexico City: Albedrío, 2008; pp. 80, 82, reproduced fig. 61, pp. 81, 187 [as Four Feminine Figures].

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