Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud

(Mexico City, Mexico, 1904 - 1957, Mexico City, Mexico)

Mexican

(mgl´ kvär-r´bäs) , artist and writer. Largely self-taught, he went to New York City in 1923 and won prompt recognition as a brilliant illustrator, stage designer, and caricaturist. His drawings and caricatures for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker are superb examples of his early work. He also was a noted muralist and lithographer. In the late 1920s he became interested in ethnology. His first major book, The Island of Bali, appeared in 1937. He later wrote three excellent studies of the life and art of Native Americans, Mexico South (1946), The Eagle, the Jaguar, and the Serpent (1954), and Indian Art of Mexico and Central America (1957). (The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.)

In 1923 he went to New York City on a Government scholarship where his caricatures appeared in the Vanity Fair and Fortune Magazines amoung other publications. A collection of his caricatures was published in 1925 under the title The Prince of Wales and other Famous Americans.

In 1930 and 1933, on a grant from the Guggenheim institute, he traveled to Hava, Bali, India, Vietnam and Africa. In his travel he focussed on racial types of these areas.

In 1937 he wrote Island of Bali, in 1946 Mexico South, in 1954 the Eagle and the Serpent and in 1957, published the Indian Art of Mexico and Central America.

In 1939, Covarubias painted two mural maps, illustrating the cultures of the Pacific area of the Golden Gate International exposition. In 1940, the maps were reproduced as Pageant of the Pacific. Covarrubias taught at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City and also functioned as the director of La Escuela de Danza del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. He also worked as a Theatre designer, easel painter, print maker and theacher. His work reflects a flair for decoration, perceptiveness and thorough cratsmanship. He died in Mexico City on february 4th. , 1957

View objects by this artist.