Atelier     Federico Cantú 1907-1989

En la historia del arte nos topamos constantemente con un sinnúmero de problemas de interpretación que nos conducen muchas veces a faltas que crean un vacío histórico.
Lo peor es cuando sin sentido se imprimen los errores en publicaciones que resultan la única fuente de consulta, resultando de ello un laberinto impropio para el presente y el futuro .
Aun hoy en pleno siglo XXI se requiere de un buen oficio de análisis para entender una obra , de un conocimiento pleno de la técnica de la temática y por supuesto de la narrativa histórica , pues sin estos elementos nuestra interpretación o análisis navegaría en la ambigüedad , de ahí a que cualquier investigador poco le podría aportar esta fotografía
Por ello los elementos paralelos de consulta como lo son : descripción o apuntes de autor , titulo o las fotografías mismas que nos describan la escena y el mobiliario o un paisaje , la buena critica , las prensa , los archivos , la correspondencia , un buen inventario o un simple sello postal …..en fin todo un conjunto de elementos que en suma nos pueden servir de mucha ayuda.

Es ahí donde una fotografía nos permite detener por siempre un lugar que resguardara un gran archivo creativo de mas de tres décadas
que sin duda tiene una importancia descomunal para el artista y su obra.

Por ello la suma de objetos de arte comprendidos en una masa hereditaria es en conjunto que podemos traducir como un motivo de vida que narra el mapa genético del pensamiento del autor , mismo que requiere de un cuidado tanto o mas que su legado, por ello cuando desparece una obra , una publicación un texto narrativo vinculatorio , estamos sin duda perdiendo parte de la esencia de una creación .

Y mas aun , si bien sabemos que se trataba de un recinto por el cual el artista lucho
En su adquisición , cuido y procuro tanto como los momentos de vida, sumando muchas horas de trabajo , de ahí la importancia de la fotografía que detiene el tiempo para ayudar a nuestra imaginación a recordar un momento y un lugar ahora ya inexistente

La imagen que presentamos nos permite adentrarnos al sentir de Federico
Una pequeña esquina dentro de uno de su Atelier, en San Jerónimo Lidice
Aquel donde desarrollo un caudal de obras de grabado , escultura monumental y pintura al oleo . Construido primeramente por Luis Ortiz Monasterio y re transformado por Cantú durante la década de los 70s .
Partiendo de esta imagen podemos crear una narrativa recordando como es ahí donde pinta obras como:
Arlequín triste, Madona yacente, Metamorfosis de Daphne , Tritón , Paisaje de San Jerónimo , Palas Atenea , Leda y el Cisne ……….
Adolfo Cantú
CYDT Collection .

The name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest, knees and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west.
Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km (43 mi) to the northwest.
The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico.
Popocatépetl (Spanish pronunciation: [popokaˈtepetl] (About this soundlisten); Nahuatl: Popōcatepētl [popoːkaˈtepeːt͡ɬ] (About this soundlisten)) is an active stratovolcano, located in the states of Puebla and Morelos, in Central Mexico, and lies in the eastern half of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt. At 5,426 m (17,802 ft)
it is the second highest peak in Mexico, after Citlaltépetl (Pico de Orizaba) at 5,636 m (18,491 ft).

It is linked to the Iztaccihuatl volcano to the north by the high saddle known as the Paso de Cortés.

Popocatépetl is 70 km (43 mi) southeast of Mexico City, from where it can be seen regularly, depending on atmospheric conditions. Until recently, the volcano was one of three tall peaks in Mexico to contain glaciers, the others being Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba. In the 1990s, the glaciers such as Glaciar Norte (North Glacier) greatly decreased in size, partly due to warmer temperatures but largely due to increased volcanic activity. By early 2001, Popocatépetl's glaciers were gone; ice remained on the volcano, but no longer displayed the characteristic features of glaciers such as crevasses.

Lava erupting from Popocatépetl has historically been predominantly andesitic, but it has also erupted large volumes of dacite. Magma produced in the current cycle of activity tends to be a mixture of the two.

Born in 1907 in Cadereyta de Jimenez Nuevo León , Federico Cantú was a prodigious talent who as a youngster barely fourteen years of age, set off on an artistic path. He enrolled in Alfredo Ramos Martínezs newly established experimental school in Coyoacán, Mexico City in 1922. There, he absorbed his teachers impressionistic lessons. Not soon after, the young man found work as assistant to Diego Rivera newly arrived from years in Europe and about to unleash an extravagant mural project that changed the capital city and propelled the careers of numerous artists. 

Cantú lived the bohemian of Paris for a decade (1924-1934)

living in Paris Cantú moves to California to have his first big exhibition works like

Madonnas and Virgins become a constant theme in the work of Cantú. He had painted them since his days at Escuelaal Aire Libre de Coyoacán. However, this devotion to sacred art is seen to gradually increase in his work, so that in 1928 Cantú paints his first mural in Pasadena, where he includes the figure of the Cristo Negro, but also in the manner of votive paintings, in which he painted the Madonna, as well as the Descanso en la Huida a Egiptowhere the Virgin and Child are the central figures. The series of ink drawings in the Cantús Sketchbook already narrate the themes of this biblical labyrinth.

 There exists a duality in the young artist’s thoughts on women, which on the one hand constitute a symbol of fertility and eroticism

Federico Cantú said of his arrival in Paris in 1930: "on my return to Montparnasse, I found that my atelier had been rented and the works sold to the highest bidder. I must have lost