Arturo Rivera

Who is Arturo Rivera?

Arturo Rivera is a Mexican contemporary painter. He was born in Mexico City and studied painting in Academy of San Carlos from 1963 to 1968. In 1969 he presented his first solo exhibition in homage to Ché Guevara in Molino de Santo Domingo. In 1973 he studied serigraphy and photoserigraphy in London. In 1976, he moved to New York and in 1978 began utiliizing the form of hyperrealism for which he is renowned today. In 1979 he went to Munich, Germany to study with Max Zimmerman, who he had met in New York.

He returned to Mexico in 1981 for a show in the University of Arts and Sciences Museum. As he continued to perfect his style of hyperrealism throughout the 80's and 90's with numerous exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout Mexico, Rivera portrayed dark, anatomic, and sometimes macabre themes. In 2000, Arturo Rivera's work was selected for an exhibit of self-portrait paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Mexico City alongside such notable Mexican artists as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. In 2003, Arturo Rivera was honored by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey, Mexico, as a Mexican Art Master of the 20th century.