Santos Balmori

Santos Balmori Picazo (b. Mexico City, Sept. 26, 1898 – d. Mexico City, March 5, 1992) was a Spanish-Mexican painter whose heavily European style was not appreciated by his contemporaries of the Mexican muralism movement, but he had influence with the succeeding Generación de la Ruptura artists. He trained and began his art career in Europe moving later to Mexico City. He became a professor and researcher at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas training younger artists such as Rodolfo Nieto, Pedro Coronel, Carlos Olachea and Juan Soriano. As a teacher, he did not stop drawing but he did not paint professionally again until after retirement, having a number of exhibitions later in life.

Life Balmori Picazo was born in Mexico City on September 26, 1899 to Ramón Balmori Galguerra from Asturias, Spain and Everarda Picazo from Mexico.

He spent his first four years of life in a community called Soberrón near Llanes, Asturias with his mother, Everanda Picazo de Cuevas, dying in Spain. The family then moved to Mendoza, Argentina. They then moved by mule across the Andes to live in Santiago de Chile.

He entered the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Santiago but his guardians did not want him to study art. In 1919, he went to Europe to study, starting at the Academy of San Fernando in Spain. The Academy of San Fernando believed that the ideal was to reproduce reality without distortions but Balmori rebelled against this idea. For this reason, he gave up studies here for Paris at age twenty two. He lived for the next fourteen years in Paris, at first studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and learning about new movements in art.

However, Mexico from the 1930s to 1950s was highly nationalistic with the painters from the Mexican muralism movement dominating, making Balmori’s more international style less appealing. He became a professor for about thirty years at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas and was also the head of the Academia de la Danza Mexicana with Miguel Covarrubias. His work can be found at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Toluca, the Museo de Universitario de Artes y Ciencias at UNAM, the Museo de la Estampa, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Madrid, the National Gallery in Prague and the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias .

When he was ninety, the Palacio de Bellas Artes held a homage for him along with the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias in Oviedo, Spain, both with large retrospectives of his work. Other retrospectives of his work have been held after his death such as the 1996 event at the Casa Lamm Cultural Center in Mexico City and the Mexican Cultural Center in Paris in 1998.

Artistry Balmori’s painting varied among the various painting styles of Europe of the 20th century as well as influence from Mexican muralism. While studying in Madrid, observing copies of Greek, Roman and Egyptian statues, he declared that beyond all forms there is a universe of light and shadow, whose mysteries, he stated, were for painters to discover. His portraits of Gandhi show academic and classical influence with some distortion of form and geometric shapes showing influence from Cubism and Picasso. Influence from Mexican muralism can be seen in realistic images and figurativism. Balmori was not influential directly in Mexican art as when he returned to Mexico in the 1930s, his European influence work was not popular. His work was not recognized by his contemporaries, with the exception of Carlos Mérida, but did have influence on the following Generación de la Ruptura.