Carlos Mérida

(Guatemalan, 1895–1984)

Carlos Mérida was a Guatemalan artist known for his paintings which merged Pre-Columbian aesthetics with pictorial ideas culled from Joan Miró and Paul Klee. Mérida use of Mayan art was a means to make European trends more relevant to his own heritage. Born on December 2, 1898 in Guatemala City, Guatemala, he spent time in Paris between 1910 to 1914 where he became acquainted with artists like Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. In 1919, having returned to Guatemala five years earlier, the artist moved to Mexico City where he worked as Diego Rivera’s mural-painting assistant. In the late 1920s, he returned to Europe, where his work underwent a shift inspired by the avant-garde works he observed. Mérida died on December 22, 1984 in Mexico City, Mexico. Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.