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| "Ignis Spiritus" Alebrije (paper mache) by Israel Alcala. [Hyperion] |
(Alebrijes are brightly colored Mexican folk
art sculptures of fantastical creatures. The first alebrijes, along with
use of the term, originated with Pedro Linares. After dreaming the
creatures while sick in the 1930s, he began to create what he saw in cardboard
and paper mache. His work caught the attention of a gallery owner
in Cuernavaca and later, the artists Diego
Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Linares was originally from México City, he
was born June 29, 1906 in México City and never moved out of México City, he
died January 25, 1992. Then in the 1980s, British Filmmaker, Judith Bronowski,
arranged an itinerant demonstration workshop in U.S.A. participating Pedro
Linares, Manuel Jiménez and a textil artisan Maria Sabina from
Oaxaca. Although the Oaxaca valley area already had a history of carving animal
and other types of figures from wood, it was at this time, when Bronowski's
workshop took place when artisans from Oaxaca knew the alebrijes paper mache
sculptures.)
