Alberto Gironella

About

Alberto Gironella was a self-taught Mexican painter born in Mexico City to a Catalan immigrant father and an indigenous mother from Mérida, Yucatán. Inspired by a literature class in 1948, he began painting in 1952, studying classical works and creating his first painting, 'La condesa de Uta.' He rejected politically influenced art like Mexican Muralism, despite influences from artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, and instead embraced surrealism to explore the unconscious mind, blended with Spanish Baroque portraiture, which he termed 'mestizo' style mixing indigenous and European elements. A voracious reader and provoker, he co-founded Galería Prisse and befriended figures like André Breton, Octavio Paz, Luis Buñuel, and Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Surrealism blended with Baroque portraiture, often described as 'mestizo' style