NAHUI OLIN: BIOGRAPHY, POETRY AND PAINTING - LITERATURE - 2025

María del Carmen Mondragón Valseca (1893-1978), better known in the literary and artistic world as Nahui Olin, was a Mexican poet and painter. Her life was marked from an early age by the arts and letters, thanks largely to the influence of her mother.

Nahui Olin's pictorial work was characterized by being creative and natural, framed within the naive current. In the case of her poetry, she had the particularity of developing aspects related to women and feminism, which gave her notoriety for the time in which she carried it out.

Carmen Mondragón (Nahui Olin). Source: Mexdoomer, via Wikimedia Commons

The life of this Mexican artist was characterized by being full of intense experiences. She suffered the loss of several loved ones and went through some failed love relationships. Nahui Olin left traces both in the artistic and in the movements in favor of women and their rights.

Biography

Birth and family

María del Carmen was born on July 8, 1893 in the town of Tacubaya, Mexico City. She came from a cultured and well-off family. Her parents were the military man Manuel Mondragón and Mercedes Valseca, who belonged to Mexican high society.

Studies

In 1897 Nahui and his family went to live in Paris due to his father's work, where he lived until he was twelve years old. Her first years of education were spent in a French boarding school, where she received classes in theater, dance, literature and painting.

Marriage

Nahui returned to Mexico after having lived in Europe for more than a decade. Shortly after arriving she made friends with the then cadet (later painter) Manuel Rodríguez Lozano. Then they started a love relationship and in 1913 they got married.

The newlyweds went to live in Paris and quickly became related to the cultural life of the city. When the First World War began in 1914, they went to Spain, where they dedicated themselves to painting. The couple conceived a son who died of drowning when he was just a baby.

Back to mexico

The couple made the decision to return to Mexico after the death of their son, in search of new life. From 1921 the couple's relationship began to weaken and the following year they separated. At that time Nahui Olin began an affair with the painter Gerardo Murillo Cornado, known as “Dr. Atl ”.

The arrival of the artist to her country caused a stir within society, that was due to her way of being and thinking. During those years, she dedicated herself to getting to know and interacting with the artistic movements that prevailed in Mexico and came into contact with the most important personalities.

inspiring muse

Nahui's provocative and bold style was a source of inspiration for several artists. She was a model for the painter Rosario Cabrera López and the French Jean Charlot. She also posed nude for various photographers of the time and made friends with Frida Kahlo, Xavier Villaurrutia, and Tina Modotti, to name a few.

Artistic activism

During the 1920s the artist was fully active in cultural work. For her part, the relationship she started with Dr. Atl continued to advance for some years. It was around this time that she made the decision to adopt the stage name Nahui Olin.

Manuel Mondragón, father of the poet. Source: Uploaded by User: Tatehuari on December 15, 2006, via Wikimedia Commons

This name had its origin in the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of “perpetual movement”. It was related to the creation of the world and its five evolutionary stages according to the Mexican aboriginal culture. On the other hand, Modragón associated it with his continuous professional boom.

New loves

In the late 1920s Nahui Olin ended her love affair with Dr. Atl. Then she had a short-lived love affair with the cartoonist Matías Santoyo and together they went to Hollywood to try their luck. However, she rejected several characters in the cinema because she did not want to be typecast as a sex symbol.

After a short time the relationship with Santoyo ended and an affair began with a captain named Eugenio Agacino. They traveled around America and Europe, places where she gave piano concerts and developed various art exhibitions.

Feminist ideal

Having lived in Europe for a long time made María Mondragón an evolved being with advanced ideals about women's rights. That motivated her in 1935 to create the Feminist League for the Fight Against Drug Addiction.

The purpose of that institution was to end the vices of drugs and alcohol, to achieve a better society. The poet also fought for the inclusion of indigenous women in urban society and the right of women to vote and education.

Painful loss

Nahui Olin suffered the death of Eugenio Agacino, who was seriously poisoned after eating food from the sea that was decomposed. The pain of the loss caused the artist to take refuge in writing and painting, so she decided not to have any more social life.

Last years and death

María del Carmen Mondragón (or Nahui Olin) spent the last decade of her dedication to painting. He worked as a teacher in a school in Mexico City and the Institute of Fine Arts awarded him a scholarship that helped him to support himself financially.

His last years of life were spent in the family home in Tacubaya, where in previous times he spent his first four years of childhood. In that place he died on January 23, 1978 at the age of eighty-four. His remains were buried in the renowned Spanish Pantheon in the Mexican capital.

Poetry

María del Carmen Mondragón grew up surrounded by literature thanks to the knowledge and influence of her mother. That awakened in her a taste for writing, especially poetry. Although her poetic work was not extensive, she managed to position herself as a prominent 20th century intellectual.

His poems were characterized by the use of a cultured, precise and reflective language. In many of his verses he used metaphors and comparisons to add more beauty and intensity. He developed a theme related to women and the right to be free in all areas of his life.

Here are the well-known poetic works of the author:

- Brain optics, dynamic poems (1922).

- Câlinement je suis dedans (1923).

- À dix ans sur mon desk (1924).

- Nahui Olin (1927).

- Cosmic energy (1937).

Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, first love and husband of the poet. Source: Tina Modotti, via Wikimedia Commons

- Nahui Olin: without beginning or end. Life, work and various invention (posthumous edition, 2012). Compilation of several of her poems by the Autonomous University of Nuevo León.

-Fragments of some of his poems

"The sand that covers the bronze pyramid"

"The sand that covers the pyramid of bronze, it is the sand of a desert that terrifies

-and when it rises, it weighs like an immense wave that crushes-

and it goes up to cover the bronze of the pyramid

-that has no spirit-

and its matter is buried without defense

under the force of the sand of a terrifying desert.

From a desert that occupies a tiny space

on a huge continent, of a desert that burns matter that has no spirit.

The matter that buries the sand that covers the bronze pyramid ”.

"Supreme selfishness"

"The supreme egoism is the inexhaustible desire, the excessive ambition of living in isolation, supreme selfishness -brain satisfaction-

There is nothing more interesting than the world that we carry inside

-there is nothing more unlimited than our spirit, and we should not seek any other force or power

to live or to produce: you have to fertilize your own entrails and give birth-

Pretend to obtain strength from all things, and express it, it is impotence, weakness, nullity.

Be self sufficient

is the elimination of all need

-the solution of the intellectual problem-… ”.

Cosmic energy

The following is a fragment of the reflection that the writer made on Albert Einstein's theory of relativity:

"Whole"

"The understanding of the totality is equivalent to using with the conscious force, the brain the unique force, the mystery or problem of the existence of the infinite and making a conscious infinite in each infinite molecule…

“The force that we could use to unleash our misery and our helplessness are tiny particles of beauty, of movement that distracts our eyes, our thoughts, and absorbs the matter of our being so to speak…

"… because if we move a tiny piece of this great apparatus - the universe - the whole has taken that movement multiplied by the effort of the thing that moves by our movement…".

Painting

The pictorial work of María Mondragón (Nahui Olin) was framed within the naive artistic movement. Therefore her paintings were characterized by being creative and expressive, loaded with vibrant colors. Her paintings gave viewers the freedom to be interpreted or understood.

The artist was in charge of portraying herself, mostly exalting the green color of her eyes. In many of her paintings she captured her country from her perspective, without neglecting the sensual and erotic features of her personality.

References

1. Carmen Mondragon. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Francesc, J. (2018). María del Carmen Mondragón Valseca (Nahui Olin), 1893-1978. Mexico: Vicente Lombardo Toledano Center for Philosophical, Political and Social Studies. Recovered from: centrolombardo.edu.mx.
3. Carmen Mondragón (Nahui Ollin). (2018). (N / a): History-Biography. Recovered from: historia-biografia.com.
4. Méndez, A. (2018). Biography of Carmen Mondragón. (N / a): Collective Culture. Recovered from: culturacolectiva.com.
5. Nahui Olin, a woman with a passionate, creative and rebellious spirit. (2018). Mexico: The Sun of Mexico. Recovered from: elsoldemexico.com.mx.