Juan Soriano (born Juan Francisco Rodríguez Montoya; August 18, 1920 – February 10, 2006) was a Mexican artist known for his paintings, sculptures and theater work. He was a child prodigy whose career began early as did his fame with various writers authoring works about him. He exhibited in the United States and Europe as well as major venues in Mexico such as the Museo de Arte Moderno and the Palacio de Bellas Artes. His monumental sculptures can be found in various parts of Mexico and in Europe as well. Recognitions of his work include Mexico's National Art Prize, the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres and membership in France's Legion of Honour.
Life Soriano was born Juan Francisco Rodríguez Montoya in Guadalajara to Rafael Rodríguez Soriano and Amalia Montoya Navarro. Starting in childhood, he began to call himself Juan Soriano, preferring the maternal surname of his father. He described his family of origin as “eccentric.”
Soriano was a child prodigy, and in 1933, his sister introduced him to painter Alfonso Michel Martínez, who taught him current modes of Expressionist and neo Baroque painting. He then studied under Francisco Rodríguez “Caracalla” at the Evolución Studio in Guadalajara, which also trained Raúl Anguiano and Jesús Guerrero Galván.
At this time, Soriano was also a regular visitor to the home and business of Jesús Reyes Ferreira. Reyes gave him work in his shop to make decorated wrapping paper as he did but Soriano found the work difficult. However, the time there allowed him to meet creators such as Luis Barragán and Roberto Montenegro, experience European art in books and magazines and discover portraits by José María Estrada, which Reyes collected. Soriano also went to his first museum and began to read classic books edited by José Vasconcelos.
The first exhibition of Soriano's work allowed him to meet artists such as José Chávez Morado, Lola Álvarez Bravo and María Izquierdo, who encouraged him to move to Mexico City, which he did in 1935 at the age of fifteen, along with his sister Martha. Here he continued a lifelong cultivation of friendships with artists, writers and intellectuals, which Soriano stated was one of the main treasures of his life. These included Xavier Villaurrutia, Carlos Pellicer, Octavio Paz (who wrote several essays about him), Lola and Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Rafael Solana (with whom he traveled to UC Berkeley in 1938), Isabel Villaseñor, Frida Kahlo, Lupe Marín and Salvador Novo. He was part of a regular social circle with Octavio G. Barreda as part of his love for poetry and writing, becoming involved in magazines such as El hijo prodigo and the .
Soriano visited Rome for the first time in 1952, and in 1954 he visited Crete, where he painted Apolo y las musas. He returned to Rome again to live from 1969 to 1975, which allowed him to study classical art.
In 1963, Soriano suffered an automobile acciden, which he documented in a painting called El accidente.
In 1974, Soriano met Polish dancer on a visit to Paris, introduced by writer Sergio Pitol. This was the beginning of an over thirty-year relationship. Soriano worked incessantly and cared only about his work, leaving the rest of his affairs in disorder. Keller stepped in to manage most of these and put some order in the artist's life. The two remained together, living in both Mexico City and Paris until Soriano's death. Since then, Keller worked to promote the artist's legacy in various parts of the world, until his death in 2023. In 2004, shortly before Soriano's death, they founded the Fundación Juan Soriano and Marek Keller.
Soriano died in 2006 at the age of 85 at the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition in Mexico City from multiple causes.
Career
Soriano began his career early in life and fame came early as well. Soriano's work was first exhibited at the Guadalajara Museum, which led to his move to Mexico City in 1935. From 1936 to 1937 he studied at the Escuela Noctura de Arte para Obreros under Emilio Caero and Santos Balmori. Balmori helped him to be accepted into the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) and a small exhibition at the end of this course at the Palacio de Bellas Artes brought him to the attention of Inés Amor. However, he did not stay with LEAR for long, leaving in 1938 because he did not like its politics.
Soriano's first individual exhibition was in 1936 at the Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. This was followed by another at the Galería de Arte of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México . During the rest of the 1940s, he exhibited in various venues in New York and Philadelphia and at the Galería de Arte Mexicano. In the 1950s the exhibited at the Schneider Gallery in Rome, the first of many individual shows in Europe, along with exhibitions in venues in Mexico such as the Antonio Souza Gallery, the Rutherford Gallery in San Francisco and his first retrospective and tribute at the Museo de Arte Moderno and Palacio de Bellas Artes in 1959. In the 1960s he had an important show at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (1966) as well as an exhibit of a series of portraits her created with only Lupe Marín as model at the Misrachi Gallery. In the 1970s, he received a grant from the Fundación Cultural Televisa to create thirty largescale works and thirty small ones which were then exhibited at the Museo de Arte Moderno. In 1993, he had an exhibit of sculpture at the Colegio de Jalisco and the Instituto Cultural de México in San Antonio. His last major exhibits before his death included the Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Iberoamericana in Miami (2001), the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid (2002), the Meadows Museum and Southern Methodist University (2002), the Instituto Italo-Latino Americano in Rome (2003) and multiple exhibitions at the Instituto Mora in Mexico City (2005).
During his career, Soriano created a number of monumental sculptures which can be found in Mexico and Europe. These include El Toro at the Tomás Garrido Canabal Park in Villahermosa (1987), La Paloma at the MARCO Museum in Monterrey (1989), La Ola for the World Trade Center in Guadalajara (1989), El Caracol for the Amparo Museum in Puebla (1989), La Luna for the National Auditorium in Mexico City (1993), La Sirena for Plaza Loreto in Mexico City (1994), Dafne for the Arcos-Bosques Building (1995), Mano for the Herdez Group headquarters (1995), two sculptures for the Expo Hannover 2000 in Germany, six monumental sculptures for different parts of Mexico in 2003 and several of his works can be found in a park in Warsaw.
Soriano dedicated much of his career from the 1930s to 1960s to the theater, starting as a child working with puppetry. Much of this work was with a group he created with Jaime García Terrés, Leonora Carrington and others called Poesís en Voz Alta, noted by Carlos Monsiváis as a “liberating movement of the theater” in Mexico. Most of this work was in set and costume design, such as for the Teatro del Sindicato de Electricistas, Teatro Orientación (with Celestino Gorostiza), El Caballito Theater and Teatro Sullivan. In the 1940s he wrote and produced a ballet with Diego de Mesa called El pájaro y las doncellas, based on a painting by Carlos Mérida, with music by Carlos Jiménez Mabarak.
Soriano began teaching art soon after his arrival to Mexico City, starting with the Escuela Primaria de Arte with the Secretaría de Educación Pública. From 1939 to 1941 he gave classes in nude drawing at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda", teaching students such as Tomás Parra. From 1961 to 1962 he taught ceramics at the Escuela De Diseño y Artesanias of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.
Soriano's affinity for poetry and association with many writers led to collaboration as an illustrator on a number of projects. In 1953 he illustrated the book Homenaje a Sor Juana edited by Juan José Arreola in the collection “Los Presentes.” In 1967 illustrated El Bestiario by Guillaume Apollinaire. In the 1979 he illustrated the cover of Octavio Paz's book Xavier Villarrutia en persona y en obra. In 1980 he created a collection of thirty two prints with text by Sergio Piton called El único argumento. In 1989 he began illustration for the book Antológico Animalía by Alfonso Reyes. In 2003 he illustrated La Fuerza del Destino by Julieta Campos and El Aguila o Sol by Octavio Paz.
In 2004, shortly before his death, he founded with his partner the Fundación Juan Soriano and Marek Keller. Other institutions have been named after the artist such as the Galería Juan Soriano of Centro Nacional de las Artes and in 2012, the Juan Soriano Sculpting Prize was established.
Artistry
Classified as part of the second wave of the Mexican muralism movement, Soriano's work include painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic works, illustrations, tapestries and set and costume design for works such as those by Eugène Ionesco, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Francisco de Quevedo, Juan Ibáñez and others. His work was highly prized by various writers including Octavio Paz, Carlos Pellicer and Elena Ponatowska, with art critic Luis Cardoza y Aragón quoted as saying he was “a poet, profound painter of visual parables.” Soriano did not believe that art should be political or solemn and Jesús Reyes Ferreira was an early influence on his work. His painting style did change almost abruptly in the mid 1950s, marked by works such as La Carrera de bicicletas, Apolo y las muas and Peces luminosos, along with a portrait of María Zambrano, showing probably influence from painter Roberto Matta. In the 1960s, he experimented briefly with abstract painting. He was a noted portrait painter with a style that Teresa del Conde called “always legible and at the same time strangely problematic.” Much of his very early work was portraits either by choice or by commission and similar to that of Julio Castellanos and Federico Cantú. One notable series of portraits were those of model and novelist Lupe Marín in the 1960s. Soriano stated that he did not believe that painting was an exact reflection of time or the artists, but rather a “form of intuition that goes beyond conscious life.”
From 1951 to 1953, Soriano was in Rome, where he worked on ceramics with Chileans Piero and Andrea Cacella, and in the 1960s began to create works in bronze as well.
Soriano's graphic work is less known, but he began creating them in 1944 and continued until 2001. In 1975, he received a commission to do graphic work at the Bramsen et Colt workshop in Paris, which caused him to divide his time between Paris and Mexico City. One notable series are interpretations of works by Juan Rulfo.
In 2003, Soriano worked on tapestry design with a death theme for the Gobelinos Workshop in Guadalajara.
Awards and recognition Soriano received numerous awards and other recognitions for his art and career during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1950 he received the first prize at the Salón de Invierno, and in 1957 he received the José Clemente Orozco Award from the government of Jalisco. In 1963 the Casa del Lago Juan José Arreola in Mexico City held a tribute and retrospective of his theater work. In 1976, he received an award from the VII International Painting Festival in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France.