Lilia Carrillo “Todo es sugerente”, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes

For international visitors arriving in Mexico City for Art Week, the calendar can feel overwhelming—fairs, gallery openings, private events, and parallel programs unfold simultaneously across the city. Amid this intensity, one exhibition stands out as essential viewing, particularly for those seeking a deeper understanding of Mexican modern art beyond the art fair circuit.

Now in its final weeks, Lilia Carrillo. Todo es sugerente at the Museum of the Palacio de Bellas Artes offers a rare and long-overdue reappraisal of one of Mexico’s most important yet internationally underrecognized artists of the 20th century. Presented during Art Week, this landmark exhibition provides foreign audiences with a unique opportunity to encounter Carrillo’s work in depth—situating her not only within the history of Mexican abstraction, but in dialogue with international avant-garde movements.

More than a retrospective, the exhibition reveals Carrillo as a multidisciplinary figure—painter, textile designer, illustrator, scenographer, and cultural organizer—challenging the narrow labels often applied to her work. With over 100 pieces and a curatorial approach that expands the narrative of modern Mexican art, this is a must-see exhibition before it closes.

More than five decades have passed since the Museum of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (MPBA) last presented an exhibition honoring Lilia Carrillo (1930–1974), one of the most important Mexican artists of the second half of the 20th century. Although her career was cut short by her premature death at age 43, her pictorial production stands out for its originality and for its contributions to the history of non-figurative painting in Mexico. Often described as “lyrical” or “informalist,” her work went far beyond these labels. Her pictorial proposal emerged in dialogue with existing models of non-figuration in Mexico and was nourished by the international avant-garde art of the early decades of the second half of the 20th century. She soon developed a personal solution that formally reconciled abstraction with hints of figuration, articulating an evocative painting full of suggestion. Her work embraced a wide range of themes, representing aspects of the natural world, imagining and prefiguring states of consciousness, and addressing various social issues of her time. This positions her as a complex artist, whose abstract work is difficult to confine within commonly used classifications.

Curated by Daniel Garza Usabiaga, director of the MPBA, this is the first exhibition to present Carrillo’s pictorial work simultaneously with her contributions to costume and textile design, illustration, and set design.

“The idea is for visitors to see a very broad image of who Lilia Carrillo was and to discover new facets of her production. We are used to hearing that Lilia Carrillo was an abstract, informalist, gestural painter, but she was more than that; she was an illustrator, scenographer, costume designer, textile designer, exhibition organizer, and muralist,” Garza Usabiaga explained.

In addition to tracing her artistic production—from her student works to her final nine paintings—the exhibition addresses her social commitment, particularly regarding the condition of women in the arts and authoritarianism in Mexico during the 1960s.

The exhibition includes more than 100 works from collections in Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara, as well as from Miami and Houston in the United States.

Most of the works are by Carrillo herself, complemented by pieces by artists such as Kati Horna, Fernando García Ponce, Manuel Felguérez, and Vicente Rojo, among others. The exhibition features two-dimensional works, artistic and documentary materials, including the film Tajimara. It also presents ancient Andean objects from the collection of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the mural The Overflowing City, Air Pollution (1970), created for Expo ’70 in Osaka.

From Abstraction to Muralism

The exhibition is divided into four sections. It begins with “From Realism to Abstraction,” which presents some of Carrillo’s earliest works, such as School Self-Portrait (1948), explores her years as a student of Manuel Rodríguez Lozano at the Escuela de Pintura y Escultura “La Esmeralda,” and traces her path toward abstraction.

Lilia Carrillo | Júbilo neutro, 1959 | Oil on canvas | 90 x 70 cm. | Courtesy of kurimanzutto, Mexico City / Nueva York

The second section, “Abstract Painter and Multidisciplinary Artist,” shows Carrillo’s transition to non-figurative art and includes her textile work, in which she incorporated fabric fragments into her paintings, adding a tactile quality, as seen in October Morning (1964). Her interest in textiles led her to costume design, fabric pattern design, and even to organizing an exhibition of pre-Inca textiles from Peru in 1962.

In “New Images of the Human Being and Their World,” the exhibition brings together works featuring unconventional depictions of men and representations of female figures. Several incorporate references to ancient cultures, such as Woman in White (1964) and Cabalistic Emblem (1965). This section also includes her work as an illustrator and critical works addressing pollution, ecological deterioration, state authoritarianism in Mexico, and the Cold War.

The exhibition concludes with “Final Works,” which presents pieces created during a period of illness. These works are characterized by dynamism, movement, and vibration, expressed through collage, drawing, and layered painting. Her final painting, Untitled (unfinished) (1974), is included.

A Reappraisal of the Artist

Lilia Carrillo (1930–1974) was born in Mexico City and was one of the most important Mexican artists of the second half of the 20th century. Although her career was brief due to her premature death, her pictorial production stands out for its originality and its contribution to the history of non-figurative painting in Mexico.

She studied visual arts at the National School of Painting, Sculpture, and Printmaking “La Esmeralda” of the INBAL and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, where she held her first solo exhibition at the Maison du Mexique.

She belonged to the so-called Generation of the Rupture, which opposed the institutionalized art of the Mexican School of Painting, and she was a co-founder of the Salón Independiente alongside Manuel Felguérez, Vicente Rojo, Roger von Gunten, and other artists. She also worked in costume and set design for the avant-garde theater of Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Garza Usabiaga announced that the exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog featuring essays by specialists such as Rita Eder, Leah Dickerman, Tobias Ostrander, Esteban García, and Jaime Moreno Villarreal, along with images of the exhibition and the artist’s work.

Lilia Carrillo | Composición I | Litografía (1/20) Available at CURATED BY MX, Newton 35, Polanco, CDMX.

“We are preparing a new book on Lilia Carrillo with the support of the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation, which will be the first publication distributed by the Palacio de Bellas Artes that will also reach the United States,” said the curator and museum director.

He also noted that several works from the exhibition will travel to the United States for two exhibitions dedicated to the artist: one at the Americas Society in New York and another at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, both aimed at reappraising her work.

Lilia Carrillo. Todo es sugerente will offer a public program that expands and enriches the visitor experience, including guided tours led by the curator. The exhibition is open from September 13, 2025, to February 8, 2026, Tuesday through Sunday, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.