Alexander Caedo

Passions

Vocation

Lifestyle

Mexican-American artist who was part of the surrealism and magic realism art movements of the mid-20th century. In 1918, when Cañedo was 15, his parents sent him to École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied under the sculptor Jean Magrou. In 1923, Cañedo travelled to Rome where he continued his art studies. In 1927, Cañedo briefly returned to Mexico. During that trip, the Mexican Government appointed him attaché to the Mexican Embassy in Rome. In 1928, Cañedo held his first art exhibition with the Circolo Artistico in Rome, a collection of pencil drawings. More exhibitions followed in other cities in Europe. That same year, he travelled to the New York City where he exhibited widely. Cañedo was commissioned in 1929 to illustrate the amatory novel Orientale: The Adventure of Therese Beauchamps by the French author Francis de Miomandre. The highly stylized Art Deco results were so successful that he retained Cañedo the following year to illustrate his next novel, The Love Life of Venus. Beginning in 1947 and over the next decade, he produced many illustrations for the covers of science fiction magazines such as Astounding. Travelling west, Cañedo held a solo show at Gump's Gallery in San Francisco in 1949, the first of many exhibitions at Gump's. In 1950, Walter Foster published an art instruction book, How Cañedo Draws the Figure which remained in print for five years. Cañedo permanently relocated to California, dividing his time between San Francisco and Los Angeles, with frequent painting trips to the Monterey area. Cañedo died in West Hollywood, California on 1 February 1978, aged 75. Link to Wikipedia biography