ATL, DOCTOR

born 1875, Guadalajara, Mex. died Aug. 15, 1964, Mexico City pseudonym of Gerardo Murillo painter and writer who was one of the pioneers in Mexico of the movement for artistic nationalism. Educated in Mexico City, Rome, and Peru, he founded Action d'Art in Paris in 1913 and edited it for three years. Returning to Mexico he founded the Accin Mundiale in 1916 and became its editor. He was made head of Mexico's Department of Archaeological Monuments in 1923 and director of the Department of Fine Arts in 1930. Murillo was passionately interested in the native art of Mexico, the creation of an indigenous modern artistic style of expression, and the depiction of the Mexican landscapehis most famous paintings and drawings being of the Valley of Mexico and the volcanoes of Popocatpetl and Ixtacihuatl. Murillo is most commonly known by his Aztec name Atl (the Nhuatl word for water), which he adopted as a repudiation of his Spanish heritage and as a demonstration of his pride in his Mexican Indian ancestors and their culture.