Alexander Cañedo Mexican/American 1902-1978
Reaching Forward, c.1960s

£1,750

Chalk on paper
Signed (lower right)
32cm x 55cm, (38cm x 60cm framed)

In 1918, when only 15, Cañedo was sent to École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied under the sculptor Jean Magrou; continuing his studies in Rome in 1923. 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 traveled to New York where he exhibited widely.

In 1932, Cañedo was invited to have a solo show of his pencil drawings at Walter P. Chrysler, Junior's newly opened Cheshire Gallery, located in the Chrysler Building. By the mid-1930s, Cañedo began exhibiting watercolors. These were shown at solo exhibitions at the Arthur U. Newton Galleries. He expanded to work in oil paint and in the early 1940s. Beginning in 1947 and over the next decade, he produced many illustrations for the covers of science fiction magazines such as Astounding.

Cañedo permanently relocated to California in the 1950s, dividing his time between San Francisco and Los Angeles. His work tended to be formally similar, with nude figures set in improbable, alien or abstracted landscapes, or featured natural objects such as seashells floating in such settings. During this time, he also produced many overtly homoerotic artworks for private collectors which were too suggestive to be exhibited in galleries.

His works are included in the permanent collection of the Leslie Lohman Gay Art Foundation and recently, acquired through this gallery, a work in the Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia.