Vladimir Cora was born in 1951 in the small town of
Acaponeta, Nayarit, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. His work is colored with
the life and energy of his tropical coastal home, reflecting both the
esthetic of the region and a social commentary on its culture. Years of
experimentation with color, form and light developed into the poetic
visual language which is uniquely Mexican and uniquely Vladimir Cora.
Silhouetted figures, fruits and abstract forms populate his paintings.
Bathed in natural and artificial light, these figures exist both in hot
tropical climes and cooler interior settings. “The work of Cora is an
ingenious exaltation of nature and life.”
Cora’s work figures importantly in 20th Century
Mexican Art. A celebrated protégé of modern master Rufino Tamayo, Cora
forms an important part of a new generation of Mexican artists. José
Luis Cuevas declared Cora one of Mexico’s greatest neo-figurative
artists after Cora was honored with first prize in Mexico’s National
Salon of Painting in 1983. The Museo de Arte Moderno and Palacio de
Bellas Artes in Mexico City have both held one person exhibitions of
Cora’s work. In recognition of his artistic contribution, the Mexican
government honored Cora by inaugurating in Acaponeta, Nayarit the museum
Casa Museo Vladimir Cora.
Despite Cora’s prominence in Mexican Art, his work
has until recently been relatively unknown in the United States. In 1997
Bernard and Edith Lewin donated works of Mexican masters Diego Rivera,
Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siquieros to the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art (LACMA). Included in this donation were
approximately 500 works from Vladimir Cora, endowing LACMA with the
largest public collection of Cora’s work in the United States. His work
is also now part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Latin
American Art (MoLAA) in Long Beach, California and the San Antonio
Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas. The Latin American Contemporary
Gallery is pleased to continue to increase the interest and appreciation
of the extraordinary work of Vladimir Cora.
From
LACGallery