Alfredo Zalce (1908-2003)
We perform Alfredo Zalce art authentication, appraisal, certificates of authenticity (COA), analysis, research, scientific tests, full art authentications. We will help you sell your Alfredo Zalce or we will sell it for you.
Alfredo Zalce was a Mexican painter and is considered by art historians to be one of the leading figures of modern, Mexican art. Zalce’s mother and father were professional photographers, and as a young boy, he helped his parents develop film. He studied art at the Escuela Central de Artes Plasticas, which later became known as The Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes. At the age of 20, he first exhibited his work in Spain at the Mexican pavilion at the Exposicion de Artes e Industrias. Zalce won second place at this exposition in painting.
Zalce typically painted scenes of Mestiza women, native plant life, rural markets and Mexican landscapes. Many of his Expressionist paintings have themes based on Mexican heritage and his revolutionary ideas. He created paintings as well as etchings rich with detail, texture and color. Zalce credited Diego Rivera as being one of his biggest influences and experimented with a number of mediums and canvases from watercolors and oils to linoleum engraving, metal and batik.
In 1930, the Mexican government commissioned Zalce to found a painting school in Taxco, Guerrero. The following year, he attended the lithography workshop of Emilio Amero and shared his classroom with other famous Mexican artists, including Orozco. Many of Zalce’s most famous lithographs were created during this era.
Zalce became an art teacher in 1932 and was working for the Mexican Secretariat of Public Education. He created frescoes and murals for schools and held his first one man show that year at the Sala de Arte de la Secretaria de Educacion Publica, followed by his American solo exhibit in Chicago in 1933.
Politics were very important to Zalce, and he was an active member of a number of political groups such as the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists (1933-1937) as well as the Workshop of the People’s Graphics.
In 1945, Zalce completed one of his most important and best-known works, a portfolio of stampas de Yucatan. He became the director of the Escuela Popular de Bellas Artes de Morelia in 1950 and continued to live and work for the rest of his life there. A major retrospective of his art was held in 1981 at the Museu de Arte Moderno de Chapultepec in Mexico City, which celebrated 50 years of his work and featured over 200 works, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, graphics and textiles. Zalce continued to paint well into his 90s and died in 2003.
Today, Zalce’s work is housed in museums worldwide and perhaps, in your own home. Still wondering about a Mexican painting, sketch or lithograph in your family collection? Contact us. We are the Alfredo Zalce experts.