Fernando Gamboa was a primary shaper of the image of Mexican Art that we have today, both in Mexico and without. There is an interesting picture in the New York Public Library image archive that first brought him to my attention: Fernando Gamboa standing next to an enormous Olmec Head at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. In a way, it is symbolic of his position in Mexican art, an enormously important thinker and creator at one end of Mexican history, next to a symbol of Mexican creativity from the other end (more than two thousand years ago).
Fernando Gamboa and Charles Poletti at arrival of Olmec Head, NY World's Fair
Upon researching the life of Fernando Gamboa, I was astounded to find out how prolific and indefatigable he was during his long career. Here is a short synopsis of what was truly an epic life. I took much of this information from the paginet biography (in Spanish, link below).
Born in 1909 he belongs to that revolutionary generation of Mexican artists that looked toward socialist ideals and indigenes roots for their inspiration. He was a visual artist, a writer, a filmmaker and an agitator for change. In his early career he collaborated with other movement artists on murals and founded the journal Frente a Frente for the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists.
His greatest talent, however, was in mounting exhibitions and bring art and contemporary society together in meaningful ways. In this he was fearless. During the Spanish Civil War he became active in the Republican cause in Spain. He mounted an exhibit in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia on the theme of Mexican political art and in Mexico he installed a high profile exhibit at the Palace of Fine Arts entitled “Spain in Flames.” Then he returned to Spain at the invitation of the Spanish Republic and with the support of the Mexican presidency to take charge of artistic propaganda in Latin American in favor of the Spanish Republic. At the end of 1939 he fled to France along with the Mexican ambassador, considered the last Mexicans to leave that country at the Republic’s defeat. In France he worked with the Mexican embassy in sending thousands of refugees to Mexico, including many Spanish intellectuals who found it necessary to flee Franco’s dictatorship.
During the Second World War, Mexico was allied with the Western powers, but played a secondary, supporting role in the war effort. During this period of international chaos, Gamboa began to establish himself as the preeminent curator of Mexican art and culture. He was the creator of numerous exhibits at the Palace of Fine Arts, the Museum of Anthropology, the National Historical Museum, and was the director of several such institutions. He still had a flare for dramatic political gestures: in 1948 during a political rebellion taking place in the center of Bogotá, Colombia, he entered the Palace of Communications, which was in flames at that point, in order to rescue a Mexican artwork on exhibit there.
In those postwar years, he worked tirelessly mounting important exhibits at the Palace of Fine Arts, creating educational programs and new art galleries and founding the Workshop Museum dedicated to the painter José Clemente Orozco in Guadalajara. Besides all of this, he managed to head the first expedition to Bonampak, the site of extensive Mayan ruins, in order to evaluate and catalog the treasures there.
From 1950 onward for a period of two decades, he directed the Mexican exhibits at various high profile international fairs. He was director of the Mexican pavilion at the Venice Biennial in 1950, and then at the world’s fairs at Brussels, New York, Montreal, Osaka and elsewhere. With his cosmopolitan understanding, he had an unfailing ability to present what was unique and important about Mexican art to the world. His pavilions invariably won praises and honors at these venues. But these were not enough: he also mounted retrospectives of Mexican art and Panoramas of Mexican artistic culture at museums worldwide: The Tate in London, the Petit Palais in Paris, the Guggenheim in New York, the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museums in Russia, as well as others in Buenos Aires, Rome, Los Angeles, Stockholm, etc., etc.!
During a short period, 1954-56, he managed to create cinematic works to support his curatorial endeavors. As the artistic director of Teleproducciones, S.A., he presented the film “Raíces” (Roots) at the Venice Biennale, directed the documentary, “Mexican mural painting” which received honorary mention at Cannes, and also directed a short film, “Carnaval at Huejotzingo.”
Gamboa’s knack for being at the eye of the storm was still working: in early September, 1973 he installed a show of Mexican paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago de Chile, with President Salvador Allende inaugurating the exhibit. Within a few days, on September 11, Allende was dead and General Pinochet had installed a reign of terror. Gamboa remained in Santiago until the 27th of September, managing to leave the country with his Mexican art.
His activities continued after this. As director of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico and guest director of other artistic institutions, he continued to enrich the national museums with new acquisitions. He was directly or indirectly responsible for 3,897 works of art being transferred to the national museums. He created the journal “Artes Visuales” for the Museum of Modern Art and created more new museums: Carmen y Alvar Carrillo Gil Museum and the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre-hispanic Art in Oaxaca.
In later years he was the director of Fomento Cultural Banamex. Banamex is the National Bank of Mexico and despite the odd corporate sponsorship, it takes a leading role in art education and publication in Mexico. During Gamboa’s time there this institution published twenty books on Mexican art. He also surpassed his one thousandth art exhibition while there.
Fernando Gamboa died on May 7, 1990. It was fitting that he would die in a period of renewed political upheaval in the world with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Gamboa was always able to find the artistic beauty among the ashes of every political clash, as well as celebrate the artistic heritage that sustains us through difficult times. In this he made a magnificent contribution to Mexican art, guiding a great part of the national art agenda in such a way to finally bring a greater appreciation for what is unique and valuable about Mexico.
For more information, see the Fernando Gamboa biography page at paginet. This is where I took much of the information for this post. If you cannot read the Spanish text, it is worthwhile to look at the website just for the beautiful photographs, which I could not, unfortunately, reproduce here because of copyright restrictions.
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