Cordelia Urueta

Cordelia Urueta Sierra (b. September 16, 1908 (Coyoacán)– d. November 3, 1995 (Mexico City)) was a Mexican artist best known for her use of color and abstraction but still retaining frequent reference to the human form. She was born into an intellectual and artistic family, related to painter David Alfaro Siqueiros and educator Justo Sierra. Her father, writer and diplomat Jesús Urueta Siqueiros, died when she was eleven with her health becoming quite poor afterwards. She began drawing when she was a child, mostly portraits with Dr. Atl noticing her talent. She did not have extensive formal training but became an art teacher, meeting a number of contemporary Mexican artists, including her husband Gustavo Montoya. After a time in Paris and New York, she returned to Mexico permanently in 1950 to dedicate herself to painting, exhibiting extensively in Mexico and abroad mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. She was offered the Premio Nacional de Arte but rejected it.

Cordelia Urueta was born on September 16, 1908 in Coyoacán (then separate from Mexico City) into a family of intellectuals, artists, diplomats and filmmakers. Her father was Jesús Urueta Siqueiros, an art critic with Revista Moderna who was also a speaker and diplomat.

Her mother was Tarsila Sierra, daughter of journalist Santiago Sierra and niece of educator Justo Sierra, who was Cordelia’s tutor. She was a cousin of David Alfaro Siqueiros. Her sister Margarita Urueta, would later become a noted playwright.

She grew up during the Mexican Revolution and her father was heavily involved in efforts to unite the various factions vying for power after the ouster of Porfirio Díaz, serving in a number of political posts as well as writing. Her childhood home was also the home of the magazine Revista Moderna and the prints on the magazines attracted her attention as well as those in the many books of the family library. Her father also had a collection of copies of European sculpture.

Urueta did not remember when she began to draw but it was mostly to copy the art she saw in the books, with works by Tiziano being her favorite. She was expelled from school when she was young for drawing pictures of nuns who were clothed on the front of the paper but naked on the back. Her father then hired the best painting teacher he could find for her. Through her father, she knew Dr. Atl, who she called Uncle Murillo, who was first to recognize her talent after seeing some of her portraits.

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