city at night

city at night

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Designing Women

During the course of my trips to Mexico City, I have made several visits to the Franz Mayer Museum.  It contains the largest collection of decorative arts in Latin America.  Franz Mayer (1882 - 1975) was a German-born financier who settled in Mexico in 1905.  During his lifetime he amassed an enormous collection of fine and decorative arts.  In his will, he donated his collection to the people of Mexico, and in 1986 the museum was opened in a colonial building which once housed a hospital.

I returned to the museum last week to see a couple of special exhibits that were being held there.  The first, entitled "Design in a Feminine Key", focuses on Mexican women designers from 1940 to the present.  Some are designers of traditional handicrafts; others are avant garde.  Here is a sample of the objects on display...


  Cotton and lace dress by Tachi Castillo, 1970



Cotton tunic dress by Josefa Ibarra, 1970



Silver and amethyst pitcher by Ana María Nuñez Brilanti



Copper and silver necklace by Ana Pellicer, 2005



Petate (a palm-fiber floor mat traditionally used for sleeping)
by Felipa Tzeek Neel, 1996



Mirror, couch and pillows by Anne Marie Midy, 2000



Hand-painted dinnerware by Cecilia León de la Barra, 2010



Woven wall hanging by Marisol Centeno, 2019



Cotton rebozo (shawl) with feather trim by Cecilia Baustista Caballero, 2011



Set of clay jars by Perla Valtierra, 2022




Lacquer plate by Martina Navarro González, 2013



Dinnerware by Marcela Calderón Bony, 2022

1 comment:

  1. Magnifico! Women artists have often been ignored, even when they have exceptional talent.

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