Carlos Mérida
Explore a Carlos Mérida portfolio in the Breething Books catalog, with copy-specific photographs and a description of its contents and original housing.
Mérida’s modernism and Guatemalan subjects
Carlos Mérida (1891–1984), born in Guatemala and active in Mexico, brought local visual traditions into conversation with modernist form. LACMA’s study of his 1921 Panajachel describes Maya-K’iche’ women, dress and pottery, and explains how Guatemalan and Mexican popular arts informed his approach to abstraction. His later compositions also engage myth and the possibilities of abstract marks.
Trajes Indígenas de Guatemala offers a focused route into his treatment of clothing and the figure. In a portfolio, individual plates can be compared as parts of a sequence; the cover and housing remain part of the publication’s physical identity. The cataloged ten-plate example below retains its printed cover, box and cord, with an approximate date stated rather than a falsely precise year.
Cataloged books and editions
Trajes Indígenas de Guatemala (circa 1940s)
The catalog describes ten color lithographs issued by Byron Zadik y Cía. in Guatemala. The described copy retains its printed portfolio cover, publisher’s box and purple cord. The date is approximate. View the ten-plate Mérida portfolio.
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Explore related material
Latin American Art · Works on Paper · Artists & Authors
Check each item page for current availability. These artist and edition notes remain useful after a copy sells; browse the Sold Archive for recorded past holdings.
Further reading
Background: a single artwork or illustrated design from the cataloged Carlos Mérida holding.