Miguel Covarrubias’ father was a Sunday painter. As a very young child, Miguel liked to sit by his father, watching him work. This kind of happened nearly every weekend. Noticing his interest, his father gave the little boy paper along with also pencil. Miguel currently happily occupied himself creating pictures. As he grew, the sketches were calling attention to his burgeoning facility to draw. By the time he was fourteen years old along with also in high school, he was creating caricatures of the teachers to the amusement of his classmates.

by then on, wherever Covarrubias went, he carried with him a pencil along with also sketch pad at the ready to put to paper someone or something in which caught his attention. within the evenings, he liked going to vaudeville revues along with also, later, to the cafés where Mexico City’s intellectuals along with also artists gathered.

Covarrubias is actually remembered by in which period as a shy, chubby boy sitting in a corner always busy drawing. He was given the affectionate nickname of “El Chamaco”, “The Kid”, a pet name in which could stay with him for the rest of his life. Some of the caricatures he made of already well-known artists, such as Diego Rivera or the visiting writer, D.H. Lawrence, ended up pinned to the walls of “EL Monote”, one of the cafes. Soon he was asked to contribute caricature Mexico City’s fashionable magazines along with also to student publications, including the well-known art journal Zig-Zag.

By the time he was eighteen, Covarrubias found himself in brand-new York City along with also was soon creating caricatures of personalities by the art along with also entertainment world, along with also celebrities by the political along with also social worlds. He also became an important contributor to the Harlem Renaissance movement. Alan Fern, a former director of the Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. wrote, <Covarrubias> “seems to us the quintessential commentator of American life within the 1920s”.
Al Hirschfield, who shared a studio with Miguel within the twenties commented, “I know he use to diddle a lot along with also sketch on tablecloths along with also menus in restaurants …. In Harlem he made hundreds of sketches in a sketchbook along with also, when there were no longer any blank sheets, on match boxes, on napkins, along with also on anything else he could find.”

After the publication of Covarrubias’ first book in 1925, The Prince of Wales along with also additional Americans, his mentor Carl Van Vechten marvelled, “I have always held This kind of as an axiom in which a caricaturist should know his subject for ten years before he sat down to draw him….<however Covarrubias> has relieved me of in which superstition. Ten minutes with any of them was all he required. The result was not superficial… <The subjects> are all set down so vividly in which posterity might study them to better advantage within the art of Covarrubias than through written criticism of their work.”

Later in which year, Van Vechten Again made a similar observation in his novel, Firecrackers, which he dedicated to MC. within the book, a character muses about “a young Mexican boy, Miguel Covarrubias, who created caricatures of celebrities who he knew only by sight along with also name, which exposed the whole secret of the subject’s personalities. Here was clairvoyance.”

Beginning in 1926, Covarrubias began illustrating books. As he read the text he could start sketching along with also, within the end, choose the most fitting images. Some of the drawings were repeated as many as fifteen times in a patient experimentation to find the right approach along with also technique.

Covarrubias book, Negro Drawings was published two years later. In his preface to the book, the caricaturist, Ralph Barton attested “Covarrubias’s drawings…need merely to be looked at to be understood. To draw as Covarrubias draws, one has only to be born having a taste for understanding everything. As we look at the drawings we are aware in which they bear the stamp of genius.” After its publication, the Encyclopedia Britannica listed him among the “wonders” of black-along with also-white artists.

In 1928, the Valentine Gallery in brand-new York City gave Covarrubias his first exhibition. The catalogue stated, “The simplification in which is actually such an important element within the Covarrubias drawings is actually seldom attained. He begins a picture after no more than the most summary of thumbnail sketches, however he is actually willing to draw along with also redraw until his acute sense of pictorial rightness is actually satisfied. The final result is actually usually deceptively simple. This kind of includes a look of immediate along with also spontaneous creation.”

Covarrubias married Rosa Rolanda in 1930. For their honeymoon they travelled by ship to China along with also on to Bali. Covarrubias threw himself into Balinese life. Everything he witnessed was recorded in sketches. The result of his two sojourns in Bali was his book, Island of Bali, published in 1937. Many of the subjects within the book are illustrated by a summary sketches.

Covarrubias became a passionate anthropological researcher. He immersed himself within the arts along with also culture of primitive cultures. His manner of sorting out ideas along with also the way of his understanding a culture was through the use of drawing. As a teacher, his students remember him with the always present pens in his coat pocket along with also a notebook to make sketches. within the classroom to illustrate what he was describing, Covarrubias could simply turn to the blackboard along with also draw. “This kind of goes something like This kind of….”

The same was true for his archaeological research. The Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso stated, “He gave to archaeology something in which This kind of lacked….along with also in which was an aesthetic perception of form, always correct.” The archaeologist, Michael Coe stated, “I learned much by his drawings.”

The group of Bali along with also Chinese sketches in This kind of exhibition executed by Miguel Covarrubias within the early thirties is actually a window into the creative process of his manner of working. Wherever he was, he recorded people along with also events for later use. These sketches show his keen powers of observation along with also his intellectual curiosity along with also his faithfulness along with also artistic understanding of his subjects.

Many of these preliminary drawings were the first step prior to developing into refined line or wash drawings or studies in colour. Great examples by the Bali sketches are the corresponding final works “Food Stall”, “Every Night is actually Festival Night”, “Brahmin Priest or Pendanda” along with also “Princess along with also Attendant” (A scene by the Ardja, Balinese Opera). These works can be viewed in Covarrubias in Bali published by Editions Didier Millet. by the Chinese sketches, there are several enhanced drawings for Marc Chadourne’s book China along with also a gouache for the jacket of Albert Gervais book Madame Flowery Sentiment in 1937.

Miguel Covarrubias began his career as a caricaturist along with also graphic artist. Whether he was working on a caricature, a book illustration, teaching a course, designing a map or sets for a ballet, studying a culture or solving an archaeological mystery, he always sketched.

The sketches in This kind of exhibition are examples of the way he worked along with also are art objects in their own right. Rubin de la Borbollas said, “Perhaps one of the most profound lessons to be learned by Covarrubias was there is actually no aspect, however abstract This kind of may be, of human knowledge or nature in which surrounds man which cannot have along with also should not have a graphic interpretation.”

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i) Miguel Covarrubias Caricatures, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. 1985, p.12
ii) Ibid. p.20
iii) Hirschfeld, Al, Interview with Adriana Williams, brand-new York City, 1985.
iv) Van Vechten, Carl, The Reviewer, Vol.4, 1923-4, (brand-new York: Johnson Reprint Company, 1967): 103.
v) Van Vechten, Carl, Firecrackers, (brand-new York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925):127-128.
vi) Barton, Ralph, Preface to Negro Drawings by Miguel Covarrubias, (brand-new York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1927).
vii) British Encyclopedia Britannica, 2oth edition, s.v. “Caricature”.
viii) Valentine Gallery Catalogue: (brand-new York City, 1928).
ix) Romano, Arturo, (Mexican archeologist): Interview with Adriana Williams, Mexico City, July 1987.
x) Caso, Alfonso, Interview with Elena Poniatoska, Novedades, Mexico City, May 1957.
xi) Coe, Michael, (American archeologist) Telephone interview with Adriana Williams, November 1991.
xii) Rubín de la Borbollla, Boletín Bibliográfica de Antropología Americana, (Mexico City: Instituto de Geografía e Historía), p.138.