Jean Charlot
| Jean Charlot | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Louis Henri Jean Charlot February 8, 1898 Paris, France |
| Died | March 20, 1979 (aged 81) Honolulu, Hawaii |
| Nationality |
France United States |
| Known for | Fresco, Lithography, Mural, Sculpture, Visual arts |
| Movement | Mexican Mural Movement |
| Spouse(s) | Zohmah Day |
| Awards |
Guggenheim Fellowships, National Council on the Arts, Living Treasures of Hawai'i |
| Website | jeancharlot |
Louis Henri Jean Charlot (February 8, 1898 – March 20, 1979) was a French and naturalized American painter and illustrator, active mainly in Mexico and the United States.
Charlot was born in Paris. His father, Henri, owned an import-export business and was a Russian-born émigré, albeit one who supported the Bolshevik cause. His mother Anna was herself an artist. His mother's family originated from Mexico City, his grandfather a French-Indian mestizo. His great grandfather had immigrated to Mexico in the 1820s shortly after the country's independence from Spain and married a woman who was half Aztec. This was likely the source of a myth which developed around Charlot casting him as a descendant of Aztec royalty.
From an early age Charlot was fascinated with the Mexican manuscripts and art in the collection of his Great Uncle Eugene, and by the pre-Columbian artefacts of a neighbor and family friend, Désiré Charnay, who was a well-known archaeologist. As a teenager he began learning the Aztec language, Nahuatl. He studied art in Paris before serving in the French Army during World War I. In 1920, his scale drawings for the mural decorations of a church were included in an exhibition of religious art at the Louvre.
Charlot spent an extensive period of his life living and working in Mexico. In 1921, after his father died, he and his mother left Europe to settle in Mexico City. He met Fernando Leal (1896–1964) and shared his studio with him. Charlot was deemed "a fine person who is doing important work" by Diego Rivera, the renowned Mexican painter and muralist. Rivera introduced Charlot to other young artists, such as Pablo O'Higgins (born Paul Stevenson Higgins and who came to live in Mexico in 1924, having grown up in Salt Lake City, Utah). O'Higgins would later recall that he met Charlot at the former's studio, when he was painting a nude of Luz Jimenez, a very beautiful Mexican Indian woman model to Diego Rivera. Luz's native language was nahuatl, which she taught to Charlot as she posed for him. Charlot and O'Higgins shared an interest in learning about Mexico and traveled together exploring the country, sometimes with Anita Brenner, a Jewish 19-year-old at that time with whom Charlot seemed in love and collaborated in several literary and illustration projects.
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