Luis Nishizawa

Luis Nishizawa Flores (February 2, 1918 – September 29, 2014) was a Mexican artist known for his landscape work and murals, which often show Japanese and Mexican influence. He began formal training as an artist in 1942 at the height of the Mexican muralism movement but studied other painting styles as well as Japanese art.

In addition to painting canvases and murals, including murals made with ceramics, he was a professor of fine arts at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) from which he received an honorary doctorate. The State of Mexico, where he was born, created the Museo Taller Luis Nishizawa in Toluca to honor and promote his life's work.

Biography Luis Nishizawa Flores was born on February 2, 1918, at the San Mateo Ixtacalco Hacienda in the municipality of Cuautitlán, State of Mexico. His father, Kenji Nishizawa, was Japanese and his mother, María de Jesús Flores, was Mexican. Since he was a child, he was introverted and solitary, spending his childhood tending cattle for his family.

Funeral of Luis Nishizawa. President Enrique Peña Nieto (right) attended to pay his respects.

Although he had interest in art at age 15, he began artistic training at the Academy of San Carlos in 1942, when he was 24, at the height of the Mexican muralism movement. Although nationalism was the prevailing sentiment in artistic production in the 1940s, he studied other movements such as expressionism, abstract art and figurativism as well.

Career

Nishizawa was a painter, engraver, graphic artist, sketch artist and ceramicist. Some of his more important canvases include Paisaje: Valle de México (1947), Paisaje de Yagul (1976) and Pátzcuaro (1960) where the blending of this Mexican and Japanese heritage and training are evident. His works have been exhibited in the Museo de Arte Moderno for over forty years, but most of his works can be found in the permanent collection of the Museo Taller Nishizawa. One of his important works is a ceramic mural done in a Keisei metro station in Japan in 1981. Its main function is to preserve and promote the works of the artist and contains about 800 works in various media. It has seven halls for temporary exhibits, a library and spaces for concerts, conferences and workshop in ceramics, engraving and drawing.