Meza, Guillermo | Colección

20th Century Mexican

The son of a tailor and healer of Txacaltec origin who worked in the working-class neighbourhood of Peralvillo, Guillermo Meza shared his family’s taste for art, history and music. He was a self-taught artist whose career was driven by necessity and survival. As his biographer Humberto Musacchio wrote: “Before his first exhibition at Inés Amor’s gallery (1941), he had worked as a tailor’s assistant, sales agent, mechanic, plumber and retouching photographs.”

He attended art classes at evening school, where his drawing teacher was the painter Santos Balmori (1899-1992), who invited him to join his studio as an apprentice. A few years later, in 1940, thanks to a recommendation by Diego Rivera, Meza was invited to take part at the famous International Surrealism Exhibition, organised remotely by André Breton with the support in Mexico of Wolfgang Paalen (1905-1959) and others, at Galería de Arte Mexicano de Inés Amor. Meza was also the creator of stage and costume designs for ballet, theatre and cinema.