Ceramic sculpture by Juan Cruz Reyes, dated 1951
12"W x 18.5"H x 6.5"D

Juan Cruz Reyes
(Source: museoblaisten.com) Reyes was born in Mexico City, January 10, 1914. He studied at the Academia de San Carlos in 1930. Joined the staff of Instituto de Investigaciones Etnograficas. He appointed professor of direct carving in 1937 and collaborated with Guillermo Ruiz until 1970. Lazaro Cardenas commissioned both to produce many sculptures in Michoacan. The most important was the monument of Morelos on Janitzio Island. In 1938 he traveled to Bogota, Colombia with a sculpture of Benito Juarez donated by the Mexican Government; in Panama he installed a statue of Morelos. In 1940, Cruz Reyes worked as professor with Francisco Zuniga in the Escuela de Talla Directa. In 1950 awarded the Guggenheim Scholarship with the project Study for Pre-Hispanic Sculpture and Creativeness. He moved to New York and exhibited individually in the New School for Social Research. In 1954 won the prize of Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico to sculpt a monument. Cruz Reyes was dedicated to sculpt monumental work commissioned by several Mexican institutions. In 1986 Japan government acquired his sculpture Paz maternal for the Street of Sculptures in Nagoya. All his work reflects sensuality and eroticism as an iconography created during the 19th century by Mexican painters and sculptors but hidden until then. Died in 1991 in Mexico City.

Good condition overall; two minor chips on scroll and one chip to the base (see photos)