By Natalie Taylor
Several artistic families of San Miguel have left major works of art. A few weeks ago I featured the Barajas family; today I would like to point out the artistic accomplishments of the Gonzalez family—with centuries-old roots in the city, related to both the Lambarris and the Malos. I met with Maria Luisa (Ayu) Gonzalez Rullan in her home near El Chorro. It is an old ancestral home, dating back to the last century, and the walls are filled with beautiful paintings by her grandfather, father, and other members of the family. She was most gracious in sharing the biographies of her ancestors, and showing me their works of art.
The artistic history of this family began with Ayu’s grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, who was born in Spain in 1882. He studied economics in Scotland, and then came to San Miguel at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1902 he married a young woman from San Miguel; he was twenty and she was only seventeen years old. But marriage at such a young age was not unusual in those days. Pedro had always liked painting, and he did many landscapes in watercolors; he particularly liked marine themes and has several paintings depicting old galleons, and other sailing vessels. He died in San Miguel in 1969.
Pedro’s son, also named Pedro (Pico), was born in 1916 and liked painting from an early age. When he was a teenager, his father gave him money, and sent him off to Mexico City to study English. The elder Pedro felt that this was important for a career in business, which he perhaps envisioned for his son. But Pico spent his money on art classes instead. When Pedro Sr. went to see his son in Mexico City, the young man confessed that he had skipped English, because his passion was art. “If you are going to study art,” his father said, “then you will do it properly.” He enrolled Pico at the Academia de Arte de San Carlos, a prestigious school where many great artists have received their formation. It was the first major art academy in Mexico, and the first art museum in the Americas, founded in 1781.
Pico did very well here, and took advantage of the many great art courses and excellent teachers who taught at the academy. He returned to San Miguel in 1943. His sister had a friend from Mexico City, Maria Luisa Rullan, and during a visit, she and Pico fell in love. He asked her to marry him but had doubts that she would like living in San Miguel, after having lived in Mexico City. He need not have worried; Maria accepted his offer, and they lived in the house where Ayu lives to this day, and had eight children. Ayu is the second born, and says her mother was pregnant for a total of sixteen years!
Pico had ranches and made his living from agriculture. But he spent a lot of time painting in oils, and left a great number of works with his children. Although he painted portraits, and even did some abstracts in later life, his primary themes were landscapes. He has many paintings of landscapes of San Miguel, beautifully executed; capturing familiar scenes of the city, but of a different time. One of them that really impressed me, shows the “bajada de Piedras Chinas”—the slope along the road of the same name. In the picture, done in 1942, it is simply a descent of a dirt road beginning at the top of Salida a Queretaro, without any houses on either side. Now, of course, it’s a narrow cobblestone street lined with houses, leading down to Huertas at the bottom. The painting, however, captures a moment in history—the way the street used to be some 80 years ago. Pico died in 2001, and Ayu’s mother died just last year at the age of 100.
The family’s artistic heritage continues—Ayu herself has done many fine engravings of her father’s works, her son is a painter as well, and so is her cousin Maruja Gonzalez, some of whose works graced the walls. Maruja, however, is better known as the writer of Los Empeños de Consuelo—a prize-winning novel. The family’s works of art are impressive, in particular the lovely paintings of Pico Bruno Gonzalez, depictions scenes of old San Miguel; images preserved for posterity.
Cover Image: A view of San Miguel, April 1942 by Pedro (Pico) Gonzalez Gil
Natalie Taylor: BA in English Lit and Journalism, Loyola University, Chicago, 1995. MFA in Creative Writing, Vermont College, Montpelier, VT, 1999. Published writer, editor, journalist. Spanish teacher in the US, English teacher in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Translator. www.natalietaylor.org Contact: tangonata@gmail.com
