Pedro Linares López: Google Doodle to honor Mexican alebrijes artist on his 115th birthday

Happy Birthday, Pedro Linares López!

Google dedicates a doodle to honor the 115th birthday of a Mexican artist who turned his dreams into reality, Pedro Linares López. His peculiar yet playful animal sculptures known as alebrijes are beloved worldwide as unique products of Mexico’s folk art tradition.

"Pedro Linares Lopez a born on 29 June 1906 in Mexico City. His father worked as a papier-mâché sculptor, or cartonero. He trained Linares to follow his path. By the time Linares was 12 years old, he had become a skilled craftsman of papier-mâché items like piñatas and the traditional skeletal figures called calaveras which are featured in the annual Day of the Dead celebration.

Pedro Linares started as a skilled maker of carton Judas figures and figurines for Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and many other artists from the Academia de San Carlos.

In 1945, as Pedro Linares tells the story, he became very sick and drifted into a fever dream. There he encountered fantastical creatures who shouted in unison a nonsensical phrase “Alebrijes!” Upon his recovery, he set out to represent these mythical beings in sculpture.

The jarring sculptures initially met little success, until overtime, Linares refined his alebrijes into the colorfully patterned combinations of reptiles, insects, birds, and mammals recognized today in today’s Doodle artwork.

As his reputation grew, he attracted the admiration of the iconic Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, but it was a 1975 documentary about Linares by the filmmaker Judith Bronowski that elevated him to international fame.

Diego Rivera stated that no one else could have fashioned the strange figures he requested. Work done by Linares for Diego Rivera is now displayed at the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City. "Pedro Linares Lopez" was awarded the 1990 National Prize for Arts and Sciences (Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes) in Popular Arts and Traditions category, the highest decoration to artisans granted by the Mexican Government. Two years later, in 1992 Pedro Linares Lopez died at the age of 86.

In 1990, Pedro Linares López was honored with the first Mexican National Prize in Arts and Sciences in the category of Popular Art and Traditions.

Thank you, Pedro Linares López, for showing us the power of imagination!

Also Read: Mohammed Racim: Google Doodle to honor Algerian educator & painter on his 125th birthday