A large print measuring 31" x 22" (78cm. x 56cm.), in very good condition. Signed and numbered 17/100. Done by Taller Lithografias Leo Acosta, Mexico City, in 1987.
A simple black bow above the door of La Mano Magica heralded the bad news. On March 9, 2014, Arnulfo Mendoza, known for his unmatched skill as a rug weaver, died at the age of 59.
To say that Arnulfo Mendoza was just a rug weaver is to say that Caruso was just a singer, Stradivarius just a woodworker, Michael Jordan just a basketball player and Bill Gates just some computer guy.
The reality is that Arnulfo Mendoza was one of the grand masters of Oaxacan art.
Unfortunately, too few people came to appreciate the great designs he created out of nondescript balls of yarn. For far too many people, the tapete, as it is known here in Oaxaca, was simply too utilitarian. After all how could someone call something art if its chief function was as a floor covering?
I remember the first time I walked into his store/gallery and realized that not only was I enthralled by Arnulfo’s work, but that he was sitting in the back of the store enjoying a cold beer. Humble and unpretentious, I sensed back then, not knowing who he was, that I was somewhere special, near a man who literally worked magic with his weavings. From that day on, every time I visited Oaxaca, I made the pilgrimage to his shop to see his creations.
I bring people every year to Oaxaca to experience part of the culture of this great area. One year one of the people who was traveling with me pulled me aside to ask a question. He had been walking along the Alcade in Oaxaca and said he had gone into a store called the “La Mano Magica, or something like that.” He wanted to know if I had any idea how much a rug from there might cost.
Clearly, he could sense the difference between what he saw there and what is typically available on the street corners and in the markets across Oaxaca. What he was looking at was art. Delicate and at the same time, robust. Intricate on such as scale that when seen whole, Mendoza’s creations were mind blowing.
Standing in his gallery, looking at his creations, you just knew that Mendoza, and his work, were special. You got the same feeling admiring his work as you would in one of the worlds great art museums. Indeed, many of the stunning creations he wove over the years hung next to some of the greatest art we have ever seen.
As well it should.
El Maestro Arnulfo Mendoza will be missed, but not forgotten. Through his art, his legacy will live on, hopefully challenging the young weavers growing up in his hometown, Teotitlan del Valle, to further greatness.
Descansa en Paz Sr. Arnulfo Mendoza. You were and will continue to be, the standard of greatness to which all future generations of weavers will be measured.
By Oaxacadave.
Arnulfo Mendoza Ruiz (August 17, 1954 – March 7, 2014) was an artist and weaver, who exhibited his work both in Mexico and abroad. Born in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, a well-known center for traditional Zapotec weaving, he became one of its best-known artisans, recognized as a “grandmaster” by the Fundación Cultural Bancomer. As director of La Mano Mágica gallery and with his former wife Mary Jane Gagnier, he also worked to promote Oaxacan arts and handicrafts.
Mendoza was born in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, a Zapotec community near the state capital that is well known for its weaving of rugs. The residents have been successful enough in this endeavor that unlike many other communities in the region, few people emigrate from here.
At age nine, he began his training in form, color and materials at his family’s workshop, learning traditional Zapotec weaving. He went on to study at the school of fine arts at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO) from 1972 to 1974.
Mendoza later married Canadian Mary Jane Gagnier, who had come to Teotitlán as a backpacker and fell in love with the area, as well as with him. They worked together to promote his work and that of other artisans in the central valleys of Oaxaca, by opening a gallery, La Mano Magica, and writing. The couple divorced but Mary Jane stayed in Oaxaca to continue this work. The couple has one son, Gabriel Mendoza Gagnier.
In 2014, Mendoza died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 59. There was a wake in the city of Oaxaca as well as in his hometown, where he was buried.
Mendoza was one of Teotitlán’s most famous weavers, whose works sold for up to thousands of dollars.He dyed his own silk and wool yarn and was particularly partial to the reds produced by the cochineal insect and sometimes used silver and gold thread. He had over fifty individual and collective exhibitions of his work, including in museums in New York, Madrid, Dallas, Paris, Los Angeles and Berlin. In 2003 his work was featured at the Weaving a Cultural Testimony exhibit at the Mexican Art Museum in Chicago. His work can be found in many private, and permanent collections of the Mexican Art Museum in Chicago, Tama Life 21 in Tokyo, Fundación Cultural Banamex, Waterloo Center for the Arts in Iowa and published in Cuento Mayas, Native Tradition (1982), Textiles de Oaxaca, Artes de México No.35 (1997) and Oaxaca Celebration (2005).
In 1980 he traveled to Paris to paint for a year. From 1987 to 2010 he founded and directed the Arnulfo Mendoza Workshop, producing tapestries with traditional and contemporary designs. In 1993 he participated in an International Art Project in Japan, with two of his works acquired by the largest public art collection in Tokyo. From 2009 to 2010 he was the co-director of the La Mano Mágica Gallery, one of the most recognized in Oaxaca. In 1996, the Fundación Cultural Banamex named him of one their “grandmasters” of Mexican folk art (Grandes Maestros del Arte Popular Mexicano). In 2001 he was awarded the Chimalli de Oro by the El Imparcial newspaper.
