Artist of the day: Ángela Gurría Davó

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Friday, April 10, 2026

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

© 2026. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Ángela Gurría Davó or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only

Ms. Ángela Gurría Davó

Dialéctica (Flor del Desierto), 1960

Tepozteco, 1967-68

a Maqueta para "Río Papaloapan", 1970

Río Papaloapan, 1970

Construcción abstracta, 1970

Durmiente, 1970

Mariposa, 1970

Mujer recostada, 1970

Proyecto para fuente, 1970

Maqueta para "Río Grijalva", 1974

Maqueta para "Árbol con pájaros", 1976

Maqueta para "Homenaje a la Ceiba", 1976

Puerta de señalamiento (triptych), 1976-90

Dos ranas, 1980

Personaje (bust), 1980

Calaca I, 1983

¡Ya basta!, 1993

Cactus (maqueta), 1993

Cactus, 1993

Calavera, 1993

Flor de cactus, 1993

Florero con flores (Jarrón con flores), 1993

Mural de mariposas o Celosía de mariposas, 1993

Calaca II, 1995

La muerte en Chiapas / Guardianes del Universo, 1995-97

Mariposa roja, 2001-02

Mariposa rosa, 2001-02

Glorieta para la mariposa monarca, 2012

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Artist of the day, April 8 2020: Ángela Gurría Davó, a Mexican sculptor (#963)

Ángela Gurría Davó is a Mexican sculptor. In 1974, she became the first female member of the Academia de Artes. She is best known for her monumental sculptures such as Señal, an eighteen-meter tall work created for the 1968 Summer Olympics.

Gurría was born in Mexico City to a very traditional family. Her father was very strict, not even allowing his wife to leave the house in Coyoacán without him. He had one boy and four girls with his wife, a situation he wanted to change with more boys. However, Angela was the last of their children.

As a child, she was attracted to the work done by stonemasons near her home and she wanted to become an artist. However, in 1940s Mexico it was nearly impossible for a woman to become a professional sculptor. She began by teaching herself.

As a young woman, she entered the School of Philosophy and Literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México as she had thoughts of becoming a writer. However, she decided to return to art after taking a class in modern art given by Justino Fernández.

Despite prejudices against women at the time, she began her art career. In the early 1960s, she traveled to Europe to study and do research in art, spending time in England, Italy, and France. Later she spent time in Greece and New York.

In 1952, she began to work as an apprentice to sculptor Germán Cueto at Mexico City College, learning from him for six years. Later she worked under Mario Zamora at the foundry of Abraham González and at the workshop of Montiel Blancas. However, it was still difficult for women to be taken seriously as sculptors, so she signed her works with male pseudonyms, Alberto Urría or Angel Urría. This included her bid for her first monumental piece, called La Familia Obrera, which was done in 1965. When the organizers of the bid found out she was a woman, they were surprised and disgusted, as at the time it will still unthinkable for a woman to do such pieces.

Her other professional activities include teaching sculpture at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Universidad de las Américas in Mexico City. In 1969, she worked in industrial design, focusing on carpets with the backing of the Banco de México, since she was interested in creating sources of work for the country’s weavers.

Although she came to prominence in the latter 20th century, Gurría is not a member of the Generación de la Ruptura, which rebelled against the artistic precepts of its predecessor, Mexican muralism. The main reason for this was that she spent much of the 1960s working on monumental sculptures with more traditional designs. However, she did become one of the pioneers of abstract sculpture in Mexico.

Her later works have not been signed because Gurría says that she is her work.

© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Ángela Gurría Davó or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only