Juan O´Gorman
Mexico City
(1905 – 1982)
Juan O’Gorman is an iconic figure in the history of 20th-century Mexican art and architecture. His legacy endures in Mexico's cultural identity, distinguished by his ability to merge painting, muralism, and architecture into works that reflect the country's historical and cultural richness.
He was born on July 6, 1905, in Coyoacán, Mexico City. From an early age, he was influenced by his father, Cecil Crawford O’Gorman, an Irish painter who settled in Mexico.
O’Gorman began his artistic training at the Academy of San Carlos and continued at the Faculty of Architecture of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he graduated in 1927. His first solo exhibition, “Fantasy and Reality in the Work of Juan O’Gorman,” was held at the Palace of Fine Arts in 1950.
Among his most notable works are the murals at the Central Library of UNAM and the mural “Historical Representation of Culture” at the same institution. In 1972, he received the National Fine Arts Award. O’Gorman’s works have been exhibited widely, including a retrospective at the National Museum of Art in Mexico City. His creations are part of significant collections, such as the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Studio Museum and the National Museum of History.
In an interview with El Universal in 1952, O’Gorman spoke about his unique home, known as the Pedregal House or Cave House: "It’s too unusual for Mexicans, but perhaps it will start a new regional tradition. Most mortals, perhaps, see their house as a castle, but an architect often views his as a laboratory."*
On January 18, 1982, Juan O’Gorman took his own life in his San Ángel home—the very house that had marked a shift in prevailing architectural design concepts and, unintentionally, signaled Mexico’s entry into modernity.
According to many writings and public and autobiographical comments, the architect, a graduate of the National School of Architecture at the UNAM, had been deeply depressed for years. This depression dated back to 1954, when one of his closest friends and confidantes, Frida Kahlo, passed away. His grief worsened with the demolition of his studio-house in San Jerónimo Lídice, which he regarded as “the most important work of his life,” and reached a breaking point with the death of another close friend, Max Cetto, in 1980.
He ended his life in a manner as tragic and multifaceted as his art: he ingested a poisonous pigment used for painting, hanged himself from a tree branch, and shot himself. His remains rest in the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons, and his legacy lives on in the works he left behind and the influence he had on Mexican architecture and art.