Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In his introduction to Método de Dibujo [Drafting Method], José Juan Tablada identifies it as a weapon in the struggle to establish harmony and democracy amid the chaos and authoritarianism in the artistic milieu. He states that the process at work [...]

After attending the preview for the exhibition of painter Emilio Boggio, the Mexican poet and art critic José Juan Tablada, who lived in Caracas for some time, discusses the artist’s work, and also makes assumptions about public taste and the [...]

This interesting article by the critic Okusai (the pseudonym of José Juan Tablada) reports on the two important art exhibitions held in Mexico in 1906: that of the magazine Savia Moderna [Modern Sap] and another of artists sponsored by the Mexican [...]

A visit to the salon of Antonio Fabrés’ students inspires the author to praise the master and his teaching methods, whose rigor in drafting and striking subjectivity had trampled the old methods of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (formerly [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

This inspired article is an homage to one of the most famous paintings by artist Julio Ruelas, entitled “Llegada de D. Jesús E. Luján a la Revista Moderna – 1899” [D. Jesús E. Luján’s Arrival at Revista Moderna – 1899]. The painting [...]

José Juan Tablada believes that art has become the “most powerful and effective” force, and is capable of finally securing Mexico’s well-being because it has been the single most influential factor in terms of strengthening political, cultural [...]

On the occasion of the Exposición de Artistas Independientes [Exhibition by Independent Artists] in New York, José Juan Tablada responded—with a spirited defense of the Mexican artists whose work was on display—to rumors he had heard [...]

In this interesting article published in the Revista Moderna de México (1898-1911), the most important forum of the era for cultural journalism, the poet José Juan Tablada raises different topics in order to document the artistic production of the [...]

“Máscara” [Mask] was a profile of Germán Gedovius, the famous artist from San Luis Potosí. Here, José Juan Tablada discusses the artist’s career, and his trials and tribulations, for a variety of reasons. First of all, to present a moving [...]

This short biography was written by José Juan Tablada and published on February 23rd of 1902, in El Mundo Ilustrado, on the occasion of Santiago Rebull’s death. In this brief account of his artistic career, the author applauds Rebull as a painter [...]

This is a two-part article, in which the writer José Juan Tablada takes us on a delightful, well-informed, and instructive tour of the animalist works of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Jews, and Persians. Perhaps due to the [...]

This is the second part of the article in which Tablada discusses the graphic albums produced by Pierre-Louis Morin, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, and Adolphe Léon Willette, the three illustrators most strongly identified with the culture of fin-de [...]

In this lengthy, two-part article, José Juan Tablada discusses the graphic albums produced by Pierre-Louis Morin, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, and Adolphe Léon Willette, the three illustrators most strongly identified with the [...]

This article, published in Revista Moderna [Modern Magazine]?which contributed to the rise of modern art criticism (in particular of the kind inspired by Charles Baudelaire and by the French parameters)?sketches a brief history of Japanese painting. [...]

In 1900, Revista Moderna [Modern Magazine]— the bastion of modernismo in the Spanish-speaking world—published two important essays by José Juan Tablada on Japanese art, both of which positioned him as a prominent authority on that subject. The [...]

Poet and critic José Juan Tablada points out that for the first time contemporary art from Mexico had been fully recognized in the United States through the œuvre of José Clemente Orozco, an artist “whose psychological power and highly tragic [...]

Tablada discusses the work of Miguel Covarrubias, the young cartoonist who was almost totally unknown in Mexico at the time but was making a name for himself as a magazine illustrator in the United States. Like Tablada, Covarrubias lived in New York [...]

The poet José Juan Tablada thought it was immensely important—politically, socially, and culturally—that Mexican painters should be gaining visibility in the United States. He reasoned that once the doors were open to Mexican art, Mexican [...]

In his review dated November 1918, the poet, critic and Mexican diplomat José Juan Tablada reports on three Mexican artists who have become part of the New York avant-garde: Marius de Zayas, Juan Olaguíbel and José de Torres y de Palomar. Tablada [...]