Francisco Eppens Helguera

Francisco Eppens Helguera or Francisco Eppens (February 1, 1913 - September 6, 1990) was a Mexican artist known for his paintings, murals and sculptures of images and scenes distinctly Mexican. He also achieved international fame for his award winning modern designs for Mexican postage and revenue stamps (1935–1953) and for his 1968 redesign of the Mexican coat of arms, still used today on Mexican government documents, coins and the national flag.

Eppens' paternal grandfather, Adolfo Dietrich Eppens, was born in Basel, Switzerland, and moved to Mexico in 1863, where he married Eloísa Campillo of Hermosillo, Sonora. They moved to Switzerland, where Francisco Eppens Campillo, the artist's father, was born in 1888. Subsequently, the family relocated to San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where they operated a hardware business. The artist's father married Mercedes Helguera (b. 1884) of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where Eppens was born on February 1, 1913.

In 1920, the family moved to Mexico City, where Eppens received his primary education. In 1927, he enrolled in a bachellor's degree program in engineering and architecture at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Eppens left that program, however, and the following year studied painting and sculpture at the "Escuela de Artes Plásticas" (School of Fine Arts) of the Academia de San Carlos. For a few years, Eppens designed advertisements and posters, and starting in 1930 he worked at the Industria Cinematográfica Nacional as an artist.

In 1947 he married María Lascurain Segovia, with whom he had three children. He died in Mexico City on September 6, 1990.

In 1935, Eppens was employed by the Mexican government office which produced postage stamps and government securities, the Talleres de Impresión de Estampillas y Valores de México. Between 1935 and 1951, he designed a large number of postage and revenue stamps in a modernist or Art Deco style. Representative examples are the Helmsman stamp from 1940, issued in connection with the Inauguration of Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho, or the Wheat Sower stamp from 1942, issued to commemorate an international agricultural conference.

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