Jose Maria De Servin (1912-1983) Mexican, Oil Painting on Burlap. Depicts a stylized wide-eyed Mexican girl dancing. Signed upper right. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Overall Size: 34 1/4 x 26 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 26 x 17 3/4 in. 

#6 #4056 . 

Jose Maria de Servin was born in Michigan in 1912, but his family moved to Guadalajara, Mexico when he was only two months old. The family followed work, but a particularly rough period of weather and health issues led them to stay in Mexico for much of de Servin’s childhood. He grew up to become a prominent member of the “Young Painters of Jalisco” group, first studying at the Mexico School of Open-Air Painting, a free art institution sponsored by the government. Although he first studied with Jose Vizcarra, he mainly worked under Chucho Reyes, whose improvisational watercolors incorporating traditional Mexican themes had a profound influence on de Servin’s art. By the early 1930s he was recognized for his work on unconventional materials, such as painting on burlap or corn husk, and for his modernist reimaginings of classic Mexican folk art, incorporating styles from artists like Picasso and other cubists. In 1934 de Servin collaborated with Jose Clemente Orozco on murals and other works that were shown in the Legislative Palace of Guadalajara, which led him to a lifelong fascination with large scale art and many murals painted jointly with his brothers, Antonio and Miguel. He taught summer art courses for 15 years at the University of Arizona, and had many solo shows in North America as well as Europe. He died in 1983, and his work continues to fascinate collectors and artists who have begun to explore the folk art and the influence his unique style had on the Jalisco scene, as well as the rest of Central America.

Commensurate with age.