Mexican art takes over some of London's most important museums

▲ Daniel Sobrino Ralston displays José María Velasco's signature. Photo courtesy of the National Gallery

Alejandra Ortiz Castañares

Special for La Jornada

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, April 28, 2025, p. 5

London. Some of the city's most important museum spaces feature Mexican artists: the Tate Modern will host Frida Kahlo's second exhibition in 2026, while Teresa Margolles's A Thousand Times an Instant will be presented on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square to denounce violence against the queer community. This is in addition to the recently opened José María Velasco exhibition at the National Gallery, which will run until August 17.

Curators Dexter Dalwood and Daniel Sobrino Ralston told La Jornada that the latter was born at the initiative of Dalwood, a British artist who arrived in Mexico in 2017 for a residency at Casa Wabi in Oaxaca, and who was a trustee of the National Gallery for eight years.

Dalwood, who trained in London with a master's degree from the Royal College of Art, has lived in Mexico for three years and connected with Velasco during the preparation of his exhibition Esto no me hizo (2021-2022) at the Museo Nacional de Arte (Munal) – a venue that lent half of the works in the exhibition – and at the Centro de las Artes de San Agustín Etla, in Oaxaca.

He explained that he worked "obsessively on a series of paintings about the history of Mexico, fusing my works with pieces from the museum's collection, including three paintings by Velasco that were kept in the warehouse.

Much of the art history prior to Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is unknown abroad. Here we present only a glimpse of their work, as this is the first exposure to the British public. Many will be surprised to learn that Mexico City is located in a volcanic valley.

“We have carefully selected the works, since, as with any artist, some do not achieve the same quality. Velasco once repeated some of his most famous paintings up to seven times, many of them commissioned, and they helped him make ends meet. We avoided including bizarre pieces with almost pre-surrealist accents, such as the large canvases in the stairwell of the Geology Museum at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, so as not to confuse the public.”

“His legacy has sparked the interest of contemporary artists such as Gabriel Orozco, who will present an exhibition inspired by Velasco in 2027.

“It's interesting to compare him with the artists of his time represented in the National Gallery, which houses a vast collection of landscapes. While they painted idealized scenes or everyday life, like Renoir, Velasco was different; he corresponds to the pictorial version of Alexander von Humboldt. His work not only portrays nature but also connects it to the broader world, reflecting innovative ideas that emerged in the 19th century.”

▲ The Baths of Nezahualcóyotl, by the Mexican painter. Photo courtesy of the National Gallery

“His landscapes of the Valley of Mexico, for example, invite us to reflect on the multiple topographical layers, from the Mesoamerican era, the Conquest, and the appearance of the Virgin of Guadalupe to his own time, revealing a temporal depth that extends hundreds of thousands of years beneath the surface. Octavio Paz, in a magnificent text, expressed it with great precision: 'Everything is suspended in a moment of pause, as if nature had stopped for a moment and then continued its march.'”

Always, international

Velasco was a great Mexican painter. He was also—always—international. With this phrase, Ralston, CEEH Associate Curator of Spanish Painting at the National Gallery, closes the catalogue essay, challenging the notion of Velasco as a local artist; in fact, he proves the opposite. From Velasco's trip to Paris in 1889, where he spent eight months, we know that he was already a painter of the full artistic maturity, who could hardly have been influenced by the Impressionists or other movements of the time.

He adds that no known paintings of his were made in the French capital, although there are records of his Atlantic voyage, such as a seascape preserved in the Munal and another of Havana Bay. Sketches of Paris appear in old catalogues, but their authenticity is uncertain, as numerous forgeries were circulating at the time due to their high value .

It also highlights Velasco's stance toward Impressionist painters, whom he criticized for their use of a palette knife and loose brushstrokes , as he himself wrote. It was a natural reaction in his time, similar to that of Spanish artists such as Martín Rico . Although influenced by masters such as Eugenio Landesio and the Hungarian landscape artist Károly Markó, Velasco developed his own style, moving away from academicism.

He could be classified as a realist, but with one distinctive feature: his scientific and objective approach, something exceptional for his time. Compared to Mexican contemporaries like Cleofas Almanza, Velasco is unparalleled in his technical quality and conceptual depth.

Of his nearly 300 known works, some sought to project Mexico abroad, such as at the Universal Exposition in Philadelphia (1876) and in Paris.

For Sobrino Ralston, one of the most significant contributions of the current exhibition will be the probable emergence of new Velasco works, as well as research that will add to the studies of Fausto Ramírez and María Elena Altamirano Piolle, the artist's great-granddaughter, who have dedicated years to their study , driven by the recent acquisition of the Velasco archive by the Kaluz Museum.