Miguel Covarrubias

(José ) Miguel Covarrubias ( born November 22, 1904 in Mexico City; † February 4, 1957 ibid ), also called " El Chamaco " (Spanish for "the boy ") was a Mexican painter, caricaturist, ethnologist and art historian.

Life

Covarrubias graduated from the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and decided to paint and to caricature. His caricatures were initially in the theaters and cafes in the city. At this time he got from his friend the sculptor Ernesto Hidalgo, nicknamed " Chamaco Covarrubias " award. In 1920 he published his first cartoon ink during a critique on Montenegro's first exhibition. As part of the art program of Adolfo Best Maugard he illustrated with the sign manual, which was then distributed in 1923 by the Secretaría de Educación Pública at the elementary school students. To 1923/1924 he went to New York City, where he cartooned for several magazines, including well-known magazines such as the Vanity Fair, for which he worked until 1936. Here he married the dancer Rosa Roland Broadway Cowan, whom he had met through his friend, the photographer Nickolas Muray. In 1932 she accompanied him on his study trip through Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe, which had enabled him a Guggenheim Fellowship. In the same year, the two went to Mexico City, where the Covarrubias specialist taught anthropology at the National School of Anthropology and History of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ( UNAM). He represented, inter alia, diffusionist positions and pointed to the similarities ancient Mesoamerican art with Asian forms. Later, he became director of the dance school at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.

Bibliography (selection)

• The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans, New York City (1935 )
• The Bali Iceland, New York ( 1937), new edition: Periplus Editions, Hong Kong, ISBN 962-593-060-4 year without
• México South, New York ( 1946)
• The Eagle and the Serpent, New York ( 1954)
• Indian Art of Mexicano and Central America, New York ( 1957)