Taller de Grafica Popular

Martín, María Luisa

Martín

María Luisa

Spain

Female

Martín, María Luisa

en María Luisa Martín was born in Salamanca, Spain, and emigrated to Mexico in 1939 because of the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). Her father had been a drawing teacher in Spain, and he subsequently worked both at the National School of Architecture and the Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Martín began studying art with her father and in 1944 enrolled at La Esmerelda, the art school run by the Ministry of Education, where she trained in painting, sculpture and drawing. Her teachers included Alfredo Zalce and José Chávez Morado. Following her first solo exhibition in 1950, Martín became a guest artist at the TGP for several years and then a member of the collective from 1955 until 1966, when political friction within the group led to her departure.
During the early 1950s Martín worked with Diego Rivera on his murals at two sites in Mexico City: the university city of UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/National Autonomous University of Mexico) and the Teatro de los Insurgentes (Theatre of the Insurgents). She was committed to social justice and took a particularly strong stance against imperialism. Her prints have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, Spain, Chile, Eastern Europe, Texas, Nicaragua, Germany and Holland. In 1955 she visited China and Eastern Europe where she exhibited her print 'Paz y amistad' (c.1955), now her best-known work.