Who was Mexico’s Teenage Artist Abraham Angel?
By George Thomas Clark “Where is the National Museum of Art?” I kept asking people in downtown Mexico City. “I don’t know,” they said. “According to this map, it’s got to be near here.” They gestured palms up. Indignantly, I wondered how anyone could be unaware of a national treasure so close, and strode around the area, feeling culturally attuned while ignoring the uncomfortable fact that until I opened my eyes 11 years ago I couldn’t have directed anyone to an art museum. “It’s just right down there,” a lady ultimately told me. I’d hit every street in the area but the right one — Tacuba. It’s a busy one-way artery three lanes wide, and the National Museum of Art stands as an enormous (yet frequently unseen) neoclassical structure guarded in front by a statue. When it was completed in 1911 and used for government offices, Porfirio Daz entertained other despots in his ornate second-floor salon. Since 1982 the building has hosted works by Mexico’s most gifted painters, particularly from
