Isidoro Ocampo

Isidoro Ocampo (20 June 1910, Veracruz — 4 February 1983, Mexico City) was a Mexican artist of the Mexican Muralism era, best known for his graphic work. Much of his career was dedicated to teaching, which kept his artistic output down, but he was also a founding member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular and the Sociedad Mexicana de Grabadores as well as member of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios and the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana.

Ocampo was born Isidoro Ocampo Vidal in the city of Veracruz on Mexico’s Gulf Coast to Medarno Ocampo and María Vidal. His very early childhood was spent with his father, who was a lighthouse keeper, but when he was five, he was sent to Mexico City to begin his primary education.

Ocampo had been drawing since age ten, but the family’s economic needs had his father send him on to study commerce. However, Ocampo rebelled and began to study art at the Academy of San Carlos at night from 1928 to 1932. Engraving and printmaking became his main specialty, learning techniques in wood, metal and stone. Because of his exemplary coursework, he was named a teaching assistant at San Carlos. Ocampo also went on to study at the Escuela de Artes del Libro with Francisco Díaz de León and Carlos Alvarado Lang, learning lithography with Emilio Amero.

Ocampo had his life and career in Mexico City, dying at his home there at age 72 from cardiac arrest. He was buried at the San Lorenzo Tezonco Cemetery in Iztapalapa.

Ocampo was one of Mexico’s important printmaker in the first half of the 20th century. Although he began painting in 1932, his primary activity remained the graphic arts. In 1932, he left San Carlos to work at the state-run publisher Editorial Imprenta Cultural, illustrating twenty eight book over seven years, also producing lithographs, etchings and woodcuts.

...
Wikipedia