Pedro Coronel

Pedro Coronel Arroyo (Zacatecas, 1922 - Mexico City, 1985) was a painter, sculptor, draughtsman and printmaker. The brother of the painter Rafael Coronel, he trained at La Esmeralda between 1940 and 1945. In Paris he frequented the studios of Victor Brauner and Constantin Brâncuşi, whose influence shaped his artistic development.

His first solo exhibition, held in 1954 at the Galería Proteo in Mexico City, drew the attention of Octavio Paz. He afterwards showed his work in France, Italy, Japan, the United States and Brazil. His painting combines a marked dramatisation of colour with a revival of forms and motifs from ancient and primitive cultures, along with a strong monumentality in large-format canvases. His sculptures have simplified forms. In his last years in Paris he produced drawings centred on the eroticism of natural forms.

In 1983 he donated works by himself and others to Zacatecas to found a museum that bears his name, and in 1984 he received the National Prize for Arts and Sciences. He died in 1985 of a cerebral haemorrhage. He is regarded as an innovator of Mexican art, and his work is held in museums around the world.