MERIDA, CARLOS

born Dec. 2, 1891, Guatemala died Dec. 22, 1984, Mexico Guatemalan artist, known primarily as a muralist and printmaker. From 1910 to 1914 Mrida traveled in Europe, where he studied art, becoming personally acquainted with such leaders of the avant-garde as Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. He returned to Guatemala in 1919, had his first one-man show, and in 1920, attracted by the social and artistic revolution in Mexico, went to Mexico City, where he became one of the pioneers of that nation's mural-painting renaissance. After a second trip to Europe in 1927 Mrida's art became less representational and eventually developed into his characteristic abstract style of geometrically conceived figures and forms. His later works show the influence not only of Cubism and such modern European artists as Paul Klee, Joan Mir, and Wassily Kandinsky but also of Mayan art. He executed important mosaic murals for the Benito Jurez housing development in Mexico City (1952) and a mosaic mural for the Municipal Building in Guatemala City (1956).