Toledo, Francisco (1940–)

Francisco Toledo (b. 7 July 1940), Mexican artist. Francisco Toledo was born in the Zapotec town of Juchitán, Oaxaca. He first studied in Oaxaca under Mexican painter Arturo García Bustos (1926–). In 1957 Toledo moved to Mexico City to attend the Escuela de Diseño y Artesanía of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. In 1960 he relocated to Paris, where he studied under printmaker Stanley William Hayter. It was not until 1965 that Toledo finally resettled in Mexico. In 1984, an edition of Jorge Luis Borges's Manual de zoológica fantástica containing his illustrations was published. In 1987, he began accumulating a global art collection, and he established the Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca in his former house to display it. He then donated the museum to the state of Oaxaca. From Zapotec folklore his paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and ceramics re-create the Zapotec world in which reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, and human beings exude sexuality.

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century; Borges, Jorge Luis; Oaxaca (State); Zapotecs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Teresa Del Conde, Francisco Toledo (1981).

Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Toledo (1987).

Andrew Kline, "Francisco Toledo," in Latin American Art 3 (1991):35-37.

Additional Bibliography

Colle, Marie-Pierre. Latin American Artists in Their Studios. New York: Vendome Press, 1994.

Congdon, Kristin G., and Kara Kelley Hallmark. Artists from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Lampert, Catherine. Francisco Toledo. London: Trustees of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, 2000.

                                       Shifra M. Goldman