Rina Lazo

Rina Lazo, full name Rina Lazo Wasem, (b. October 23, 1923) is a Guatemalan/Mexican painter, who began her career in mural painting with Diego Rivera as his assistant. She worked with him from 1947 until his death in 1957 on projects both in Mexico and Guatemala. Since then she has remained an active painter, better known for her mural works than canvases although the latter have been exhibited in Mexico and other countries making her one of Guatemala’s better known artists. She is a member of the Mexican muralism movement and while she criticizes modern artists as too commercial and not committed to social causes, she believes the muralism will revive in Mexico because of its history.

Rina Lazo was born on October 23, 1923 in Guatemala City to Arturo Lazo and Melanea Wasern. She attended primary through high school at the Colegio Alemán. She spent her childhood in Cobán, where she had contact with local Mayan peoples, which would later have impact on her art.

Lazo began her art studies at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes (today the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes) in the early 1940s. There she worked as an assistant to Julio Urruela painting murals at Guatemala’s National Palace. In 1945, she won a scholarship from then President Arévalo to study art in Mexico, at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda". She states this is why she left the country, not the revolution that was taking place at the time. At the school, she studied with Carlos Orozco Romero, Jesús Guerrero Galván, Alfredo Zalce, Federico Cantú and Manuel Rodríguez Lozano but quickly became a favorite student of Diego Rivera, who she calls her best teacher. She met Frida Kahlo at her and Rivera’s home in Coyoacán, where she was invited to eat. She did not like spicy food, but Rivera told her she needed to learn how to appreciate chile peppers to appreciate Mexico.

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