Cordelia Urueta

Who is Cordelia Urueta?

Cordelia Urueta Sierra was a Mexican artist best known for her use of color and abstraction but still retaining frequent reference to the human form. She was born into an intellectual and artistic family, related to painter David Alfaro Siqueiros and educator Justo Sierra. Her father, writer and diplomat Jesús Urueta Siqueiros, died when she was eleven with her health becoming quite poor afterwards. She began drawing when she was a child, mostly portraits with Dr. Atl noticing her talent. She did not have extensive formal training but became an art teacher, meeting a number of contemporary Mexican artists, including her husband Gustavo Montoya. After a time in Paris and New York, she returned to Mexico permanently in 1950 to dedicate herself to painting, exhibiting extensively in Mexico and abroad mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. She was offered the Premio Nacional de Arte but rejected it.