Dr. (Gerardo Murillo) ATL , 1875-1964

Painter, sculptor and vulcanologist, Gerardo Murillo was born in October 3, 1875, in Guadalajara, jalisco. In his native city he studied painting under Felipe Castro and Félix Bernardelli, and later attended the School of Fine Arts in Mexico City. He traveled in Europe, where he studied Italian frescoes from 1897 to 1903. When he returned to Mexico, the government invited him and other artists to decorate the wall of some public buildings. Gerardo Murillo together with José María Velasco and Joaquín Clausell, is considered one of the most important Mexican landscape painters. For his landscapes he created Atlcolors, solid resin-based pigments, and painted several panoramic views of immense size. He began using the name Atl (the nahuatl word for Water). All through his artistic career he developed an intense mystic and scientific interest in volcanoes. He wrote fiction, essays on the study of vulcanoes, art, anthropology and linguistics. He died at the age of 85 in Mexico City.

Paisaje con el Iztaccíhuatl  (1932) Mixed media on wood 88 x 154 cm

Vista del Popocatépetl  (1934) Tempera and Atl colors on masonite 100 x 125 cm

Autorretrato  (1948 ) Atl Color on cardboard 53 x 36 cm

Valle de Tepoztlán  (1958) Atl colors on masonite 92 x 122 cm

Autorretrato  (1959) 70 x 59.5 cm

Paricutín  (ca. 1943) Atlcolor and oil on cardboard 72 x 93 cm