Alberto Beltrán

Alberto Beltrán García (born March 22, 1923, Mexico City, d. April 19, 2002, Mexico City) was a Mexican graphic artist and painter known principally for his work with publications such as illustrations and political cartoons but he created a number of murals as well. He was born in the rough neighborhood of Tepito and began drawing for local publishers when he was a teenager. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas where one of his teachers introduced him to the Taller de Gráfica Popular where he began his career in earnest. From the late 1940s until his death, he work with various publications, mostly newspapers, but he also did book illustrations as well. In his later career, he worked on a number of murals, especially in the state of Veracruz, which he had an affinity for. Despite winning a number of important awards for his work, he is relatively unknown even in Mexico, with collections of his work scattered among a number of institutions.

Life Alberto Beltrán García was born on March 22, 1923, in the rough Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City to Hesiquio Beltrán Franco and Josefina García.

As his family was poor, he only completed primary school before working. In 1943, he entered the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas where he learning basic engraving with Carlos Alvarado Lang and fresco painting with Alfredo Zalce.

Near the end of his life, he lived at the Club de Periodistas, a home for aging journalists. He wanted to form a fund for the education of artists with his considerable saving, but legal and economic problems eventually made this impossible.

In the late 1940s, he began doing political cartoons and illustrations for leading newspapers in Mexico City and other parts of the country, appearing regularly in Excélsior, Novedades de México, Diario de la tarde and La Prensa . In 1960 he worked with Revista Magisterio, a magazine dedicated to education. For book illustration, he principally used three techniques, woodcut, metal engraving and lithography. His accurate portrayals of indigenous life came from his frequent travels to rural areas in various parts of Mexico. These were used to illustrate publications such as literature published by the Instituto Nacional Indigenista and a book called Relatos, mitos y leyendas de la Chinantla by Roberto Weitlaner. The book Los mexicanos se pintan solos by Ricardo Cortés Tamayo features images by him illustrating various scenes featuring the common people of the country in the 1950s and 1960s.

His work with the Taller de Gráfica Popular focused on anti-US imperialism, Nazism, fascism and Francoist Spain. It supported various social and civic movements in Mexico, especially those related to the ideals of the Mexican Revolution and those related to workers. He often drew depictions of common men such as street vendors, cooks, bakers, police and many others along with symbols such as the nopal cactus, maguey, huaraches, machetes, sombreros and sarapes. From his time at the Taller, he believed that art was for the masses not his personal enrichment or fame. He signed his work “beltran” without a capital letter or accent mark.