Roberto Montenegro Nervo (February 19, 1885 in Guadalajara - October 13, 1968 in Mexico City) was a Mexican painter, illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

, and stage designer.

In 1903, Roberto Montenegro began studying painting in Guadalajara under Felix Bernardelli

Felix Bernardelli

Atiliano Felix Bernardelli was an Italo-Brazilian painter and musician. He spent most of his life in Mexico teaching art. Gerardo Murillo and Roberto Montenegro were among his pupils.- References :...

, a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian-Mexican artist who had established a school of painting and music in that Mexican city,
and he produced his first illustrations for "Revista Moderna", a magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 that promoted the Latin American modernist movement and for which his cousin, the poet Amado Nervo

Amado Nervo

Amado Nervo also known as Juan Crisóstomo Ruiz de Nervo was the Mexican Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay, journalist, poet, and educator. His poetry was known for its use of metaphor and reference to mysticism, presenting both love and religion, as well as Christianity and Hinduism...

, wrote. He lived in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, and in 1904 began studying architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

. It wasn't long after he abandoned it to study at the Academia de San Carlos under the talented artists Antonio Fabres

Antonio Fabres

Antonio Maria Fabrés y Costa Antonio Fabrés was a famous Spanish artist during the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Barcelona Spain in 1854. It is said that he was the artist gene since his father was a draughtsman and his uncle a silversmith. He started studying at the Escuela de Bellas...

, Julio Ruelas

Julio Ruelas

Julio Ruelas was a Mexican graphic artist, painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Ruelas was the principal illustrator of the Revista Moderna magazine and is most associated with Mexican symbolism. A number of his works are on display at the Museum of the City of Mexico and in the Zacatecas museum...

, Leandro Izaguirre

Leandro Izaguirre

Leandro Izaguirre was a Mexican painter, illustrator and teacher. He entered the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City in 1884...

 and German Gedovius

Germán Gedovius

Germán Gedovius was a Mexican painter....

. Some of his fellow students were Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...

, Ángel Zárraga

Ángel Zárraga

Ángel Zárraga Argüelles was a Mexican painter. He was founding member of the cultural organization El Ateneo de la Juventud.-Biography:...

 and Francisco Goitia

Francisco Goitia

Francisco Bollaín y Goitia García was a realist painter from Fresnillo in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico.Goitia studied at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City from 1898 under the direction of German Gedovius, Jose Maria Velasco, Saturnino Herran and Julio Ruelas...

.

Eventually he was awarded a scholarship from the Mexican government to study at the Academia de San Fernando

Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando , located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery....

 in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

. It was here that he met Joaquín Sorolla and Ignacio Zuloaga

Ignacio Zuloaga

Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta was a Basque Spanish painter, born in Eibar, near the monastery of Loyola. He was the son of metalworker and damascener Plácido Zuloaga and grandson of the organizer and director of the royal armoury in Madrid.-Biography:In his youth, he drew and worked in his father's...

. These two great painters became a big influence in his work. He moved to 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...

 in 1907 and became interested in cubism

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

. He had the fortune of meeting 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...

, Juan Gris

Juan Gris

José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...

, Braque

Georges Braque

Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...

 and Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...

 while he stayed in France. His skill as an illustrator landed him a job making drawings for Le Temoin, a local magazine. He also wrote a biography of Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky

Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. He grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations...

 and illustrated an edition of Aladdin

Aladdin

Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , and one of the most famous, although it was actually added to the collection by Antoine Galland ....

's Lamp.

When the First World War broke out, Montenegro was forced to move to Mallorca

Mallorca

Majorca or Mallorca is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the Balearic Islands.The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Cabrera Archipelago is administratively grouped with Majorca...

 and stayed there for five years. During this time he met the highly recognized painter from Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

, Anglada Camarasa, who also became an influence for him.

When Montenegro's returned to Mexico, he was commissioned to paint several fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

es in the convent of the former Colegio Máximo de San Pedro y San Pablo

San Pedro y San Pablo College (Museum of Light)

The San Pedro y San Pablo College complex has seen a lot of changes since it was built in late 16th and early 17th centuries, and today the church portion of the complex is home to the Museo de la Luz sponsored by the National Autonomous University of Mexico...

 (Great College of Saints Peter and Paul) by José Vasconcelos

José Vasconcelos

José Vasconcelos Calderón was a Mexican writer, philosopher and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in the development of modern Mexico. His philosophy of "indigenismo" affected all aspects of Mexican sociocultural, political, and economic...

. One of his best works "Fiesta de la Santa Cruz", he finished in 1924 on the staircase of that building. See also Mexican Muralism

Mexican Muralism

Mexican muralism is a Mexican art movement. The most important period of this movement took place primarily from the 1920s to the 1960s, though it exerted an influence on later generations of Mexican artists...

He was commissioned to paint several frescoes in the Bar Papillon in Mexico with Federico Cantu, he finished in 1934

An influential promoter of popular arts, Montenegro organized events like the first popular arts festival which was held in 1921. he also published "Pintura Mexicana del Periodo 1800-1860" in the 1930s and worked in the choreography of Aleko

Aleko (opera)

Aleko is the first of three completed operas by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The Russian libretto was written by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko and is an adaptation of the poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin. The opera was written in 1892 as a graduation work at the Moscow Conservatory, and it won the...

 with Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...

, and Lenormand's Le Simoun with Antonio Leal. He made many portraits. One of his most famous is the one of his longtime friend Chucho Reyes which can be seen at the Museo Regional de Guadalajara.

He published "Retablos Mexicanos" in 1951 and exhibited in Mexico and abroad, earning him several recognitions. He was fortunate enough to have a retrospective of five decades of his work be held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes

Palacio de Bellas Artes

The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the most important cultural center in Mexico City as well as the rest of the country of Mexico...

in Mexico City in 1965. Roberto Montenegro died on October 13, 1968.