The text by Carlos Mérida (1891-1984) emphasizes a critical view of Isabel Villaseñor’s work. It differs from the text by Diego Rivera (1886-1957), where the painter emphasizes some of the artist’s characteristics that refer to gender rather than to her artistic production with sentences such as “los nervios de una mujercita fina y preciosa” [the nerves of a fine and lovely little lady], or “Isabel Villaseñor la de los ojos bonitos, se parece por la belleza de su exterior e interior y su producción, a un esbelto cacto en flor” [because of her inner and outer beauty, and her production, Isabel Villaseñor, the one with the pretty eyes, resembles a slender cactus in bloom]. In this article Mérida makes no reference to Rivera’s text, written during the same period; he mentions, however, the exhibition catalog, written by Fernández Ledesma, about which he regrets that it is mere literature and not a technical study of the artistic personality of the exhibiting artist.
Mérida´s activity as a critic started soon after he arrived in Mexico in 1920. He wrote more than 200 articles in publications such as, among others, El Universal Ilustrado, Nuestra ciudad, Boletines de Carta Blanca. He wrote extensively about such diverse topics as dance, popular art, Mexican as well as international painting and sculpture, design, and photography, mainly.
