In the Mayan Image

Scenes of the Mayans dance on Mexican artist Raul Anguiano’s 16-foot mural. To the left is a feathered serpent beside the face of a holy priest and the God of Death. To the right is an image of the Lacandon Indians, a remnant Maya population living in the forests of Chiapas, Mexico.

Painted in the brilliant colors of the Yucatan Peninsula and Chiapas, the mural, titled “The Mayas: Magic, Science and the History of the Maya,” is the newest arrival at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art. The mural hangs in the museum’s Meso-American Gallery.

The painting will be officially unveiled Friday in a private ceremony, kicking off museum plans to turn the Meso-American Gallery into a permanent Mayan culture exhibit.

Central to the mural is a story depicting the Maya culture from fables of a princess embracing a frog to figures of dancers, musicians and exotic animals.

“The images are taken from Bonampak, a ceremonial center built in the 7th to 9th centuries in the Chiapas,” said the 85-year-old Anguiano, one of the last living members of the Mexican muralist movement pioneered by celebrated artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco.

Anguiano sketched the images 50 years ago during an ill-fated expedition to the Maya ruin found in the heart of the eastern Chiapas jungle.

The mural was commissioned by the Collectors Council of the museum and is the Bowers’ second Anguiano mural.

Completed in February, the Mayan-themed mural is dedicated to the memory of Richard Barrutia, a lifelong friend of Anguiano and internationally known linguist and educator who died a year ago. Barrutia and Anguiano met in the 1950s in Mexico City, where they taught. The two friends lost touch and came back into contact 10 years ago.

“The mural was set up as a memorial to my husband, because he was an influential educator and he loved the arts,” said Kathleen A. Barrutia. She too became close friends with Anguiano.

“I called Raul the day Richard died and I didn’t have to ask him to donate the second mural. Raul just did. That’s how generous he is,” said Barrutia, who sits on the executive board of the Collectors Council. “My husband and I raised money for both the murals and dedicated it to the Bowers Museum.”

Anguiano is distinguished-looking with silver locks combed back and black-rimmed glasses. Most who know Anguiano call him Maestro, Spanish for “teacher.”

Anguiano’s works hang in museums around the world, including the Vatican, the Museo de Antropologia in Mexico City, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.

Born in Guadalajara in February, 1915, Anguiano established a name at a young age. He began teaching at age 17 and in 1934 moved to Mexico City, where he met Diego Rivera.

“I remember he was painting on the scaffold high up toward the ceiling at the National Palace of Mexico,” Anguiano said. “He climbed down from the scaffold to introduce himself to me. He regarded my work. I know this because after he painted another mural at the National Palace, a journalist asked him who could continue the tradition of Mexican mural painting, and he said only three artists: Pablo Higgins, Frida Kahlo and Raul Anguiano.”

Anguiano, who lives in Huntington Beach two months a year, is active in promoting the arts and sees himself as a contributor to the cultural relationship between Mexico and California.

His murals are visible examples of his contribution.

Several images on the “Mayas” mural resemble ancient fresco paintings Anguiano discovered in the ruins of a Maya temple in Bonampak in eastern Chiapas.

It was here Anguiano first encountered the Lacandons during a 1949 expedition. He was part of an anthropological and archeological survey of the tribe. The second mural was inspired by 70 sketches from this expedition.

The expedition, however, was a tragic one, Anguiano said.

The painter joined an international team comprising cultural experts, including American archeologist Charles Frey, who is believed to have discovered Bonampak.

“The Mexican government didn’t know about the frescoes still preserved in the Bonampak ruins,” Anguiano said. “When Frey told them about it, they didn’t believe him. So Frey went to Diego Rivera and David Siqueiros to ask them to help finance the expedition,” Anguiano said. The painter was commissioned by his government to join the expedition.

“They asked me to go. I was intelligent, I was young and I was eager to go,” Anguiano said. “I was the provisional painter and I was commissioned to paint the jungle and its inhabitants.”

The team’s trek involved miles of jungle and rivers. On the Usumacinta River, the currents were so strong it flipped the team’s canoe. Frey and another team member, Franco L. Gomez, drowned.

“I still remember it so clearly,” Anguiano said.

Anguiano has been back to the site and is saddened by the destruction he sees of the lush jungle he calls the “green ocean” to developers and the population explosion.

These days, Anguiano spends most of his days with his wife, Brigita, and sketching his dog, Tajin. Despite his age, Anguiano certainly has not lost his desire for painting murals.

“I still can climb scaffolds at my age,” Anguiano said.