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Alfonso Michel (b. 1897 – d. 1957) was a Mexican painter, contemporary with the Mexican muralism movement, but whose artistry made him a forerunner to the Generación de la Ruptura that followed. ==Life== Michel was born in the state of Colima to a wealthy and politically powerful family which owned large numbers of coconut palms, and supplied fruit to markets in Jalisco. He claimed to have been born in 1906 but his birth certificate says 1897. He had a sad childhood, with his parents separating after his father caught his mother with another man. He then took the children to live with him in Guadalajara. Five years later, Michel’s mother died and his father decided to adopt the three children born of her affair. This led to financial problems with their businesses on the point of bankruptcy. The situation was made worse with the death of his father.〔 He has two major passions in his life: art and the sea, writing a detailed letter once to Inés Amor, the owner of the prestigious Galería de Arte Mexicano about both.〔〔 He began drawing in childhood, moving onto painting in his late teens. However, his formal schooling was intermittent, ending at age fifteen.〔 In 1922, his parents sent him to San Francisco where he took classes in painting and worked at a studio used by various painters.〔 When he returned to Mexico, he associated himself with a group of artists that included Jesús Reyes Ferreira, Juan Soriano, Oliviero and Ricardo Martinez and Jesús Guerrero Galván. He was also associated with painters such as Rufino Tamayo, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Roberto Montenegro and Agustín Lazo, but he considered them “past their prime” and preferred the younger generations of artists.〔 His love of the sea extended into travel, with his first trip to Europe in 1916 along with his family.〔〔 Later in his life he also traveled to places such as Buenos Aires, Paris, Berlin and Monte Carlo, living in Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris for a couple of years starting in 1924 with Agustín Lazo to study art.〔〔 In this endeavor, he supported by his brother Jorge, but Michel lived vicariously, making restaurant menus and selling even his most meager possessions to survive, living in a hotel room with three young Spaniards and no heating.〔 His last trip to Europe was touring France, Spain and Italy between 1949 and 1951.〔〔 His time in Europe exposed him to the bohemian lifestyle, which he adopted and became known for.〔 He was a fanciful and eccentric person, brown from time in the sun, carrying belongings in a bag and a string of pendants around his neck.〔 His life remained economically and artistically unstable until the mid 1930s because of the lack of money or health issues, especially a tumor on his neck.〔 Michel’s closest friends among Mexican painters during his lifetime included Juan Soriano, Manuel and Lola Alvarez Bravo, and Rufino and Olga Tamayo.〔 Michel spent much of his life in frail health and died in 1957 while planning a return to France, dying instead in the French Hospital in Mexico City.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alfonso Michel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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