Jesús de la Helguera (1910-1971) was a Mexican painter, of a markedly nationalistic and idyllic work, which at first was classified as excessively commercial, but which was later valued positively by critics and the general public.
Helguera is especially remembered for the publication of his works in calendars, which were distributed for more than fifty years in Mexico, with a concept that highlighted the pre and post-Hispanic history of the country, always loaded with great splendor and romanticism.
Source: mirartegaleria.com
The artistic world paid tribute to his work properly after his death with exhibitions in important cultural venues, where the public could have a broader contact with his work, compare it and appreciate the stages and the pictorial style used, thus assimilating its true value.
Biography
Early years
Jesús Enrique Emilio de la Helguera Espinoza was born on May 28, 1910 in Chihuahua, Mexico. His father, Álvaro de la Helguera García, was Spanish, while his mother, María Espinoza Escarzaga, was Mexican.
This mixture of nationalities offered the young painter a wide cultural contact that can be seen reflected in his works, especially when living in both Mexico and Spain, for reasons beyond his control.
The first years of his life were spent in Mexico City, before moving to Córdoba, Veracruz, where he would not stay for long. At age seven, he and his family were forced to emigrate to Spain to flee the Mexican Revolution.
Education
In Spain, Jesús de la Helguera began to develop his innate talent and to train academically in the field of painting. His teachers were so in awe of him that at the age of nine they offered him his first teaching job as a drawing teacher for the children of his own school.
At the age of twelve he entered the Madrid School of Arts and Crafts and later the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts. At this stage he received classes from renowned painting masters, won awards and recognitions, highlighting those received by the Círculo de Bellas Arte de Madrid.
His teaching career, which he had started at such a young age, continued in Bilbao where he served as an art teacher.
Personal safety was once again the reason for another great change in the life of Jesús de la Helguera, who had to flee with his wife Julia Gonzáles Llanos and their two children to Mexico, this time due to the Spanish civil war.
Calendars
On his return to Mexico he worked in the magazine Sucesos para todos and, from 1954, with the Galas de México publishing house, a company in charge of reproducing his work through calendars at the request of a cigarette company.
For most Mexicans, calendars became an inexpensive way to possess art in their homes. These were carried out by characters proud of their roots and their identity, with indigenous princesses, gallants and ladies in their ranches, in the course of their daily life, accompanied by an environment and an unequivocally Mexican iconography.
The company requesting the works extended to Helguera a list with the characters, locations and elements that should be included in the calendars. Then a field team, including the painter, traveled to the chosen sites taking photographs of landscapes and establishing additional ideas to have an infallible guide that would allow to be faithful to the real environment exhibited in the painting.
However, critics did not take these works seriously, accusing them of being a commercial product, which showed an idealistic and unreal Mexico, devoid of modernity and development, which even idealized poverty.
Style
Helguera's work transcends beyond the publication of calendars, with more than six hundred paintings to his credit that maintain in common his attachment to tradition and nationalism, whether Mexican or Spanish.
His works denote the influence of Catholicism that accompanied him personally throughout his life, which did not prevent him from creating paintings of marked feminine eroticism, as can be seen in his vision of Leda and the Swan.
In his paintings of intense color and realism, he always highlighted the beautiful and the romantic, with symmetrical, sensual or courageous faces, as the case may be. Also for this he received criticism, promoting in some works what some critics describe as a European aesthetic that does not fit with the Mexican mestizo reality.
The image of women as a submissive protagonist is another of the criticisms that have arisen in recent years around the work of Helguera, who is accused of stereotyping the female figure by linking it to roles that even today have been difficult to abandon..
Main works
Among his most outstanding works are:
-The legend of volcanoes
-The evening prayer
-The girl with the lemons
-The farewell
-Juan Escutia
-The founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlán
-Orchids for you
-Homeland
-The death of the bullfighter
-The sky arrow
-The brave
-Leda and the swan
-The sad night
-The shawl
-The mañanitas
-Quauhtémoc
-La Bamba
-Creole beauty
-Gypsy idyll
-Moon flower
-Indian love
-Aztec grandeur
-The month of Mary
Recognitions
Jesús de la Helguera died on December 4, 1971 in Mexico City, at the age of 61. Time was in charge of offering the necessary perspective so that the world appreciated his work and made tributes and recognitions for him in gratitude for his artistic contribution.
In 1986 the Palacio de Bellas Artes de México hosted the retrospective of his work “Jesús Helguera, painter of almanacs”. In 2010 the centenary of his birth was celebrated with cultural activities, promoted especially by the Soumaya museum, where some of his works are located; in addition to the placement of a commemorative plaque in his birthplace.
Undoubtedly, his work does not leave those who appreciate it indifferent, either because of the use of intense color, the realism that he prints on the canvas or because of the concept of the Mexico of yesteryear that opens debates about the way in which for some must really be remembered.
References
- Graciela Cruz Hernández. (2017). Jesus de la Helguera. Taken from institutohistorico.org
- Mexico in time N. 32. (1999) Los almanaques de Jesús Helguera. Taken from mexicodesconocido.com.mx
- Carlos Monsivais. (2016). Jesús Helguera: The charm of utopias on the wall. Taken from algarabia.com
- Brenda Alejandra Velázquez Escobedo. (2013). On the pictorial work of Jesús Helguera from the gender perspective. Taken from interiorgrafico.com
- Tere Romo. (2003). The chicanization of mexican calendar art. Taken from latino.si.edu