Mexico City says goodbye to American painter Kathleen Clement, who spent six decades documenting Mexico’s natural world

Kathleen Clement — American-born painter, photographer, taste documentarian and passionate advocator for the earthy satellite — has passed distant astatine the property of 97, her household reported earlier this month. For much than six decades, she made Mexico City her home, creating a assemblage of enactment that bridged nations, creator traditions and generations.

Born successful 1928 successful Ord, Nebraska, Clement grew up during the epoch of the Dust Bowl, a formative acquisition that shaped her lifelong sensitivity to scenery and biology fragility. As a kid she witnessed some hardship and wonderment — famously recalling the awe of a whale that arrived by bid successful the plains of Nebraska, an representation that stayed with her arsenic a awesome of displacement and marvel. She graduated from Ord High School successful 1946, studied astatine Milton College successful Wisconsin, and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln successful 1950. She aboriginal pursued studies successful creation disapproval with Maestro T. Joysmith and studied museography successful Paris.

Clement was known for incorporating textile elements into her work, including fabric, stitching and reflective elements. (Courtesy of Jennifer Clement)

In 1960, Clement emigrated to Mexico City, wherever she would unrecorded for the remainder of her life. Settling successful San Ángel, she became portion of a vibrant originative assemblage that included artists specified arsenic Juan O’Gorman, Gunther Gerzo, José Luis Cuevas, Mathias Goeritz, Helen Escobedo, Leonora Carrington and Elizabeth Catlett. Among her aboriginal solo exhibitions, her 1969 presumption astatine the Museo Casa del Risco, Centro Cultural Isidro Fabela, marked an important milestone.

Clement’s creation evolved from lyrical realism into impressionistic and yet abstract compositions, achieved done aggregate layers of transparent paint. Her enactment was profoundly rooted successful the flora of the Valley of Mexico and carried an unmistakable ecological conscience. As Sylvia Navarrete Bouzard, the erstwhile manager of Mexico City’s Museum of Modern Art, observed:

“Nature is triumphant successful Kathleen Clement’s painting; leafy, nascent, free, but astatine the aforesaid clip fragile and perishable … In the mode of the botanical drafting of past centuries … Kathleen Clement’s coating acquires the worth of grounds — and informing — it makes america rediscover integrated beingness and earthy quality that situation america and that we nary longer announcement and reminds america of the imperative of preserving them.”

Influenced by Japanese line, Mexican color, Chinese porcelain, and textiles from India and Africa, she created works inspired by cloth and stitching, sometimes incorporating solid and mirrors, and adjacent sewn elements into her paintings. She was besides an accomplished portraitist and photographer; her photographs of Mexico City graffiti appeared successful Zapatista Graffiti: A Photographic Essay (2003) with a substance by Jennifer Clement.

Over a vocation spanning much than seventy-five years, Clement mounted much than 50 solo exhibitions and participated successful much than 1 100 radical shows crossed Mexico, the United States, Europe and beyond. Her enactment received planetary recognition. She was awarded prizes astatine the International Biennial of Humor and Satire successful Gabrovo, Bulgaria (1989 and 1991), received the International Culture Prize of Parma, Italy, and participated successful the 1994 Monterrey Museum Biennial. In designation of her lifelong creator accomplishment and taste contribution, she was besides honored with the 2025 Elizabeth Heywood Wyman Award.

Clement’s works are held successful important nationalist and backstage collections, including the Museum of Nebraska Art; the National Museum of Women successful the Arts successful Washington, D.C.; the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil; and the Library of Alexandria successful Egypt; and successful prominant backstage collections specified arsenic those of the Jordan Black family, Elena Poniatowska and Yusef Komunyaaka. She was included successful galore large publications and notation volumes, among them Who’s Who of American Art and 20th Century North American Women Artists.

Kathleen Clement is remembered for her luminous canvases, her devotion to Mexico’s endangered landscapes, and her unwavering content successful creation arsenic witness. She leaves down family, friends, chap artists, students and admirers successful some the United States and Mexico, arsenic good arsenic generations of viewers moved by her layered, radiant meditations connected nature’s endurance and fragility.

Mexico News Daily