Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, April 10, 2026 : Ángela Gurría Davó, a Mexican sculptor (#2497)

Ángela Gurría Davó (1929 – 2023) was a Mexican sculptor and the first woman to become a member of the Mexican Academy of Arts in In 2013 he won the National Prize for Science and Arts in the area of Fine Arts in his country.
Biography

Gurría is the last youngest daughter of a traditional and rigid family from Chiapas. Since she was a child, when she was attracted to listening to the music from the activities carried out by the stonemasons who were near her home in Coyoacán, she decided to become an artist. However, in the 1940’s, Mexico was still governed by serious prejudices against the professional development of women, so it had to be trained as a self-taught in the field of sculpture.

From 1946 to 1949, he entered the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to carry out studies of Hispanic and Spanish Letters. At that time, she intended to devote herself to being a writer, however, she changed her mind and returned to her activities in the plastic arts.

Subsequently, in 1949-1952, Angela began her career as a sculptor when she entered the Mexico City Center (current University of the Americas) and then became a student for six years of the sculptor Germán Cueto who introduced abstractionism to the sculptural forms in Mexico. He later worked on his studies under the teachings of Mario Zamora, in the foundry of Abraham González and in the workshop of Manuel Montiel Blancas. He later ventured into studies to develop his plastic arts techniques in England, France, Italy, the United States and Greece.

At that time, the sculptor signed her works under the male pseudonyms: Alberto Urría or Ángel Urría because she anticipated the disapproval that would arise when she gave her works with her real name. It was achieving success and recognition when he dedicated himself to the creation of monumental public works in various parts of Mexico. His first monumental piece made in 1965 was “The Workers’ Family” and was followed in 1967 by the creation of a lattice door 18 meters high and 3.5 meters wide for the main entrance of the factory established by the Bank of Mexico for the manufacture of banknotes. For this work, she received his first prize at the III Mexican Biennial of Sculpture of 1967.

Over time, he became a pioneer of modern sculptural art in Mexico City and, by 1970, he had already left anonymity and achieved worldwide recognition and fame. Ángela Gurría also served as a sculpture teacher at the Universidad Iberoamericana in 1961 and in 1963 at the University of the Americas. She participated in the Advisory Council of the Institute of Political, Economic and Social Studies (IEPES) in 1981. She has been a member of the Mexican Plastics Hall since 1966 and the Academy of Arts since 1973.

Ángela Gurría stood out within her monumental works and public art for the complexity and abstraction of her technique that she sets within nature. He defines his sculptural works as ideas that form his own development and space as the element that expresses his own geometry

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