Francisco Toledo

1941 -

"To notice his artistic universality is not to negate his extensive use of local sources. Without insisting on Mexicanidad, Toledo nonetheless frequently takes advantage of the rich visual history of his country. Obvious allusions, such as the painted faces with their tongues sticking out, or the uncomfortable smiles of Vera Cruz figurines, or to the all-too-famous plumed serpent, with its sexual connotations as underlined by D.H. Lawrence, or to coyotes, jaguars and conch shells characterized in Teotihuacan, or the mazes and interlaces found carved in relief on so many ancient monuments, make Toledo's own place unmistakeable. It is clear that he is scholarly in his probing of his own Zapotec sources, where already strange metamorphoses had taken place around Monte Alban, and images with the body of jaguars and the face of iguanas abound. (It is apparent, also, that he has relished the transformations of ancient symbols when, in the 16th century, the fanciful codices were indited.) Yet all this does not prevent him from casting an eye to Europe and painting with a Dubuffet line the portrait of a cow. Or combining a European allusion (to Goya) in "Woman with Chairs" with the mask of ancient Mexico, its tongue sticking out..."

From Dore Ashton notes of Toledo
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