Daniel Manrique

Daniel Manrique (November 28, 1939 – August 22, 2010) was a Mexican artist whose life and work mostly revolved around his home neighborhood of Tepito in Mexico City. He was born into a poor family, who did not support his artistic ambitions, but he maintained his Tepito identity despite. Manrique is best known for his mural work, which depicts the life and popular culture of poor urban neighborhoods such as Tepito, as well as aspects of Mexican and Latin American history since the Spanish conquest. Most of this work was done in Tepito as part of the program he founded called Tepito Arte Acá, but he also did murals in other countries such as Canada and Argentina. His work and the work of Tepito Arte Acá has been recognized by UNESCO, several universities, the Museo de Arte Moderno, CONACULTA, INBA and he was accepted into the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

Life Daniel Manrique (Daniel Manrique Arias) was born on November 28, 1939, in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. He described his mother, as the “classic Mexican woman,” able to put up with much and loyal to her husband but without ambition. He described his father as hard-working but a womanizer and drunk. He said that he had a happy childhood but that he also suffered hunger and poverty. He began working early, first with an uncle that sold used clothing and another that had a pulque bar. His talent for drawing appeared at a very young age, but he was not a very good student. Between working to help the family and being rebellious teenager, he did not finish primary school until he was sixteen. At that time he dropped out and swore to never work on another’s schedule again.

Through his life, he remain well known and mostly respected among the residents of Tepito, He chronicled his life in an autobiography called “Tepito Arte Acá” named after the art and social organization he founded. The cause of death was an embolism, which was also a diabetes complication. three murals in Toronto, Hamilton and Winnipeg at the request of Argentine exiles in Canada (1982), His writings include “Para qué sirve el arte… para nada” (For what does art serve… nothing), a collection of essays about both popular and high culture, as well as a musical theater piece called “Pulque para dos” (Pulque for two). In 2006, he was invited to participate in the Encuentro de Muralistas mexicanos y argentinos (Mexican and Argentine Muralist Encounter) in Buenos Aires. After his death, he received a number of tributes which include a 2011 exhibition at the Capilla Británica in Mexico City, a special exhibition at the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana in 2012, and another tribute from the Cuauhtémoc borough of Mexico City in the same year. For this reason, he did much of his work along with social organizations especially the Unión de Colonos de Santo Domingo in Coyoacán and Campamentos Unidos in Colonia Guerrero.

Mexican popular culture and ordinary life in poor urban neighborhoods features in much of his work as a way to bring attention and value to this class of people.