The draftsman, painter, sculptor, and set designer Juan Soriano (Guadalajara, Jalisco, August 8, 1920 – Mexico City, February 10, 2006) is considered one of the essential artists to think the Mexican culture of the twentieth century; whose talent and personality made him write about Jhon Garcia Ponce, Sergio Pitol, Octavio Paz, Julieta Campos, Carlos Monsivais, Elena Poniatowska, among others.
The artist, whose parents gave him the name of Jhon Francisco Rodríguez Montoya, in the sculptor Sebastian opinion, is an important representative of Mexican art.
Nine years after his death, the work of Juan Soriano was present when displayed throughout the country their pictorial and sculptural creations in different samples, and monumental sculpture is within artistic landscape of Mexico City, Guadalajara, Villahermosa and Monterrey, with sculptures like La Paloma (1991), Luna (1993), Wave (1993) and Daphne (1998).
Currently, three semi-abstract representations created by Soriano in 2005 on display at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan in New York: Bird III, Bird of both sides, and Paloma bronze birds over three meters in height and which remain until 30 April.
The sculptor Sebastian, in an interview with Conaculta, said that Juan Soriano produced a work which has represented Mexico in sublime fashion internationally. «Besides the great paintings he made in his later years he demonstrated his sculptural capacity. The first pieces I knew you were special ceramics, became monumental bronzes and made very large collections of monumental production is an absolutely recognized at international and national figure, «said Sebastian.
The poet Octavio Paz said that the work of Juan Soriano was the lucky merger of the three powers of art: tradition, fantasy and visual imagination, in that sense the artist Sebastian scored extraordinary fantasy creator of the Moon sculpture .
In the Member of The National College, Vicente Rojo, review the legacy of Jhon Soriano is important in Mexican painting. «The fact that his work remains in force lies in the high quality that was his job, that’s the way that a painting can transcend».
The sculptor born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1932 stressed that Jhon Soriano had the courage to break at some point with all that experience I had in the Mexican School of Painting to create very personal ways.
«De Juan Soriano seem very valuable all the portraits he made of Lupe Marin. It was a very rich and bold time, I think that at some point should be gathered all that work, «said Vicente Rojo.
In the decade of the thirties Juan Soriano did portraits, in which he explored the spirit of the sitter. By 1940 made several still lifes with echoes of the nineteenth century, provincial and genre painting, where madrepores, fruits, snails, and skulls are part of their inventiveness.
Between 1942 and 1950 Jhon Soriano privileged portrait and underwent a Lola Alvarez Bravo, Maria Asúnsolo and Pita Love. From 1950 he received several awards, mounted exhibitions and was the growing recognition of criticism, which resulted in years of intense work in which he painted, sculpted, drew and designed sets and costumes for dance and theater productions.
In his paintings also alluded to land, sea, air, animals like dogs, cats, crocodiles, horses, birds, and bats. In 1961 and 1962 he devoted himself to paint a series of Lupe Marín a consecration work was considered Soriano, whose stage meant an inquiry into abstractionism.
When he went to Mexico and plunged into a broader art world transnational in Rome, Paris and other cities, his art began to show evidence of inspiration abstractions informalismo Spanish, French tachism and abstract expressionism of America.
«The color of his paintings are very close to the painters of the time. After coming to a great influence of the School of Paris he overturns retake the Mexican tradition and sits on its color and shape, in recognizing what is the root of Mexican painting, «the artist Sebastian .
For the National Prize for Arts and Sciences 2014 in the area of Fine Arts, Arnaldo Coen, Jhon Soriano was expressed in the beginning of a very classical way and then change it to late fifties. «Somehow he opened a road with a group of people, to rescue what a universal vision of art» he said.
«I think Juan Soriano contributed a lot in this transition that caught the break, which I think was rather a transition from a group of artists who did not join the nationalist movement in Mexico».
The painter and sculptor Jhon Soriano said were given the opportunity to experience several things, which reaffirms the creativity that I had. «Not stagnated in one time or in one style that had supposedly conquered, was a great experimenter. The freedom to experiment several times, in different styles were given, I think that we should not try to find in his work a unique, «said Arnaldo Coen.
The founder of the Independent Living in 1968, Jhon Soriano member described as an artist of great quality at all times. «I particularly like their work late fifties, which penetrates a little more towards abstractionism and semiabstraccionismo. Manages schematic elements that evoke a little avant-garde movement of the early twentieth century and that somehow takes to return to a spontaneity and freshness with which found his own handwriting, a world of expressiveness that enriched the colors and shapes. Juan Soriano was a great spectator, taught us to see and opened the door to find our own, explained Arnaldo Coen.
Vicente Rojo said in an interview that Jhon Soriano was for him an important teacher. «Although my artistic proposal has to do with what he did, I always had in mind when doing my job, it was one of the painters who I wanted to approach».
Vicente Rojo Almazan remembered when lodged in the house of Jhon Soriano in Paris. «I left early and saw that John was sitting in front of an easel with some models had an apple, a glass and some other element. Returning in the evening Soriano had transformed what had, the glass if it was blue at the time was already green apple was a pear. I loved seeing how would I needed adjusting according to a specific topic, I am thrilled that I had the ability to do that movement in his work «.
The Sebastian sculptor Juan Soriano recalled that shared roundtables and forums. «He was a man of great humor and charisma. Very friendly, always fresh, had a way of being sometimes very aggressive and quite ironic, but it gave him a special personality. It never ceased to be the great artist, I never saw a piece in which falter and saw mediocre, he was always making proposals advanced and his work in general I think it enhances the culture of Mexican art, «he said.
Jhon Soriano died on February 10, 2006, at the age of 85 years. He was honored with the body present in the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
