George de Zayas a Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 caricature

Caricature

A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...

 artist, best known for work that appeared in Collier's, Harper's Bazaar

Harper's Bazaar

Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...

, and the magazine section of the New York Herald Tribune

New York Herald Tribune

The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...

. His father, Rafael de Zayas Enriquez (1848–1932), was a noted historian, orator, and lawyer, named Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

 of his country. In 1907, opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz

Porfirio Díaz

José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori was a Mexican-American War volunteer and French intervention hero, an accomplished general and the President of Mexico continuously from 1876 to 1911, with the exception of a brief term in 1876 when he left Juan N...

 forced the de Zayas family to flee their homeland and settle in New York. There, George's brother, Marius de Zayas

Marius de Zayas

Marius de Zayas Enriquez y Calmet , was an early 20th century Mexican artist, writer and art gallery owner who was influential in the New York arts circles of the 1910s and 1920s.-Life:...

 (1880–1961), became a well-known caricature artist and art dealer. At the age of 16, George left for Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 to study art, where he met some of the most important artists of the day. In 1919, he contributed eleven caricatures to the portfolio by Curnonsky

Curnonsky

Maurice Edmond Sailland , better known by his pen-name Curnonsky , and dubbed the Prince of Gastronomy, was the most celebrated writer on gastronomy in France in the 20th century. He wrote or ghost-wrote over 65 books and enormous numbers of newspaper columns...

, pseudonym of the French writer Maurice Edmond Sailland (1872–1956), who later became a well-known food critic

Food critic

The terms food critic, food writer, and restaurant critic can all be used to describe a writer who analyzes food or restaurants and then publishes the results of their findings. While these terms are not strictly synonymous they are often used interchangeably, at least in some circumstances...

. The portfolio was entitled Huit Peintres, deux sculpteurs et un musician tres modernes. The eight painters mentioned in the title were Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...

, Albert Gleizes

Albert Gleizes

Albert Gleizes , was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop...

, Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

, Marie Laurencin

Marie Laurencin

Marie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. -Biography:Laurencin was born in Paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in Sèvres...

, Jean Metzinger

Jean Metzinger

Jean Metzinger was a French painter.Metzinger was born in Nantes, France. Initially he was influenced by Fauvism and Impressionism, but from 1908 he was associated with Cubism. Metzinger was a member of the Section d'Or group of artists...

, Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...

, Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

 and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes was a French writer and artist associated with the Dada movement. He was born in Montpellier....

; the sculptors Alexander Archipenko

Alexander Archipenko

Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist.-Biography:...

 and Constantin Brâncuşi

Constantin Brancusi

Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...

; and the musician Eric Satie. It was also while living in Paris that de Zayas gave Marcel Duchamp a comet-shaped tonsure which was photographed by Man Ray, an image that has often been reproduced in the literature on this famous French artist. De Zayas returned to the United States in 1926, where he worked for a variety of magazines on a free-lance basis. In 1933, he designed the Huey Long Medal, and in 1938, joined the Artists Guild, where, for a brief period, he served as president. He ended his career as a commercial photographer, working for many years for the International Division of RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

.