PAINTINGS CAPTURE MEXICO’S WOMEN

The striking impression is one of sadness. He shows it in the faces of the women of Mexico--women of poverty, injustice and squalor; women of dignity and beauty.

Raul Anguiano, 72, is a Mexican artist with an international reputation. The women of his native country have been his subjects for most of the 55 years he has been an artist.

Anguiano’s work is being shown at the Museum of Man in Balboa Park through June 7 as part of the museum’s Cinco de Mayo celebration. He was recommended to the museum by Javier Escobar y Cordova, the consul general of Mexico, stationed in San Diego.

It might seem to some that the Museum of Man is an odd place for an artist’s retrospective. Doug Sharon, director of the museum, said that just isn’t so.

“ Yes, it is odd if you look at it only as art,” Sharon said. “But no, if you see the art as focusing on the ethnic identity of a people. He captures the soul and ethnic identity of the Mexican people, particularly the women, better than anyone I know.

“This is a bit of a departure from what we normally do, but we saw the work as very valuable. We’ve been going in this direction for about three years, showing native American sculpture and painting, as well as other art exhibits. It’s a direction we’d like to pursue more.”

Anguiano, born in Guadalajara but relocated to Mexico City in 1934, has traveled often to the United States. He was one of several Mexican artists whose work was featured in retrospectives tied to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. He has been honored in Cuba, the Soviet Union, Spain, France and England. Some of his works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

“He captures the quality of Mexico’s people, especially in the eyes,” Sharon said. “He has a special feel for the peasant woman, the Indian woman. It’s haunting--like a glimpse into the Mexican soul.”

Anguiano, a polite, articulate man with a soft-spoken manner, said his work has occasionally been called “too sad, too tragic.”

“But there is a lot of poverty in Mexico,” he said. “You cannot erase it, cannot escape it. My women are not as sad as the women of Mexico are in reality.”

Even so, it’s a sadness that seems to embolden--rather than compromise--dignity and grace. These people whose lives Anguiano so adroitly sketches or paints “share a sadness borne of suffering--you see it in the illegals, especially, who come here for a better life,” he said. “They merely want to work. And for many, there’s no future in Mexico. That’s the reality.”

Still, after the earthquake of 1985--a disaster that humbled and crippled Mexico City--Anguiano observed a solidarity and a stoicism he hadn’t seen before.

“You didn’t see lots of crying, weeping, gnashing of teeth,” he said. “At least not collectively. You saw so many pulling together, loving each other. I thought, ‘Ah, we’re still Aztecs.’ The Aztecs were strong and didn’t suffer. They responded with solidarity--to the struggle of helping each other.”

Anguiano is a painter, an etcher, an engraver, a lithographer and muralist. He has done many murals for the museums of Mexico. He has also been a teacher. For 32 years he has taught at the Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City and for 20 at the University of Mexico City.

He has been influenced by Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Cezanne, but particularly by Cezanne’s “geometrical sense of space.” He calls his work “poetic realism . . . inspired by nature,” but structured by a deference to geometry.

The eldest of 10 children--”That must be why I’m not crazy about children”--he was born to a shoemaker and his wife. From 17 on, he spent much of his time raising his siblings while trying to draw and learn from the masters. Seventeen was also the age he began teaching others how to draw.

He said of his own style, “I paint very fast, I draw very fast. I do everything else very slowly--I get up, shower and read the paper very slowly.”

His output is tremendous. In 1982, he was honored at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City with an exhibit called “50 Years of Work.” It featured thousands of Anguiano originals spanning many periods of interest--satire, surrealism, portraiture.

One of his admirers--and friends--is Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid, a sometime traveling companion who owns several of Anguiano’s works.

“He’s a man of the 20th Century,” Anguiano said admiringly. “He has a post-graduate degree from Harvard; he has a lot of knowledge. He’s a nice man, very capable, but his best virtue is serenity.

“We have so much suffering in Mexico--we’ve had the oil crisis and the earthquake, and always, suffering. He’s faced those battles and events with much serenity, gallantry and knowledge. He’s the right president for the right moment in Mexico. I say this not just because he’s a friend but because I believe in his ability.”

Anguiano paused, looking for a moment into the eyes of one of the women he had painted.

“Still,” he said, “so much . . . is yet to be done.”