Jesús Guerrero Galván (1910-1973)

Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City
Dr. and Mrs. MacKinley Helm, Santa Barbara
The Estate of William Campbell Estler, Palo Alto
The Huntington Galleries Inc., Huntington
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, Latin American Art, May 19, 1987, lot 72, illustrated
Acquired from the above by the present owner

"…The subject in itself is of no importance…the value of a subject is determined by the depth of affection the artist has invested in its definition."
                                                                                      Guillermo Rivas, Mexican Life

According to MacKinley Helm, there are only two or three paintings in the oeuvre of Jesus Guerrero Galván that directly communicate the intimate feelings of the artist. The present painting, rendered during the early months of his wife’s pregnancy, captures- in serene splendor- the anticipation Galván clearly felt toward the birth of his first child. Helm wrote of the present painting, "There is a treatment in the little boy, a quality of tenderness not elsewhere so exquisitely rendered in Galván’s painting. It is as though his restless spirit, had, in anticipation of a tender experience, for the first time come to rest."[1] Aesthetically the meaning is clear. An intimate reflection on the profound occasion of the birth of a child, Galván’s awe transcends through the luminous hues of La Concepción.  Stylistically drawing upon the Renaissance tradition of chiaroscuro, Galván plays with light and dark and endows his tender subject with a curious spirituality seldom conveyed by his contemporaries in a non-devotional image.  Line and color are rendered with a confidence, however. Galván seemingly delights in the figure of the child, playing between the light and the line particularly the hands and feet, far beyond ordinary observation. Luminous and entirely innocent, Galván suspends the natural and ideal in a delicate balance that at once conveys romantic tranquility and spiritual unearthliness.

[1] MacKinley Helm, Mexican Painters: Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros and other Artist’s of the Social Realist School, New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1941, no. 48, p. 125, illustrated, p. 124