Background
CHARLOT, Jean was born on February 7th, 1898 in Paris, Mexico. He entered the French army and became a lieutenant in the artillery. Charlot served with the army until 1920 and after a short stay in Paris emigrated to Mexico.
CHARLOT, Jean was born on February 7th, 1898 in Paris, Mexico. He entered the French army and became a lieutenant in the artillery. Charlot served with the army until 1920 and after a short stay in Paris emigrated to Mexico.
Students’ Art League of New York, 1929-1930, Chouinard School, Los Angeles, 1933-1934, Florence Cane School, New York, since 1934. Paintings and Frescoes: Frescoes, Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, and ministry of edn., Mexico City. Easel paintings, Rockefeller collection, Phillips.
In Mexico he became identified, along with Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, with the great mural movement just taking form under the inspired leadership of the Mexican minister of education, Jose Vasconcelos. Though younger than the other painters and less concerned with their ideological convictions, Charlot's professional training as an artist, his knowledge of history and the artists' techniques, his mathematician's understanding of architectural form and the then radical experiments of the Cubists were a determining influence in the crystallizing of a style which was both modern and Mexican. His "Fall of Tenochtitlan" (1922) in the staircase of the National Preparatory School was the first mural of the entire group to be completed in true fresco. Of his three other murals in Mexico, "The Washerwomen" and "The Packcarriers" (1923) still remain in the Ministry of Education building.
In 1926 Charlot became staff artist to the Carnegie Archaeological Expedition in Chichen Itza, the results of which appeared in the Institution's publication of The Temple of the Warriors (1929). Stylistically these investigations had an important influence not only on the development of Charlot's own art but on the work of the other Mexican painters as well, notably Rivera, Roberto Montenegro, and the younger men. In 1929 Charlot came to the United States; he taught at the Art Students' League in New York, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and various colleges and universities until his appointment as professor of art at the University of Hawaii in 1949.
Along with his mural painting Charlot was an active printmaker, having first exhibited in the Paris Salon d'Automne in 1920, as well as a creative writer and historian. His writings list over 65 major books, articles and portfolios, of which the most important are: The Charlot Murals in Georgia (1945), Art from the Mayas to Disney (1939), Art-making from Mexico to China (1950), and Dance of Death (1951). He had innumerable one-man shows in Mexico, the United States, and Europe, and his easel paintings appear in most major public collections. There are more than 36 mural projects to his credit, the most important of which--besides those in Mexico--are at the University of Georgia, the Church of St. Brigit in Peapack, N.J., the Des Moines Art Center, St. Mary's College, Notre Dame University, Syracuse University, and the University of Hawaii. Charlot's honors include a two-year Guggenheim Fellowship (1945-1947) and honorary degrees from Grinnell and St. Mary's colleges.