Electa Arenal
Electa Arenal, born as Elena Electa Arenal y Huerta, was a Mexican artist, known best as a muralist painter, and sculptor.Early life and education
Elena Electa Arenal y Huerta was born on May 16, 1935 in Mexico City, Mexico into a Mexican Communist Party family, artist Elena Huerta Muzquiz and Luis Leopoldo Arenal. Her sister Sandra Arenal Huerta, was a known activist, feminist and writer. Her mother was part of the Taller de Gráfica Popular and was within the Mexican artistic circle of the twentieth century.
As a child she lived between 1941 and 1945 in the Soviet Union, along with her mother and sister, due to political reasons. The family returned to Mexico and Arenal entered school at Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado. Later enrolling at Academy of San Carlos. She married architect Gustavo Vargas Escoboza and together they had two children.Career and mid-life
Arenal assisted her mother on frescoes painted at the Universidad Autónoma Agraria Antonio Narro in Coahuila, Mexico and she assisted Diego Rivera on the exterior murals of the Estadio Olímpico Universitario and Insurgentes Theater between 1952 and 1954.
In 1961, Arenal moved to Holguín, Cuba with her family, where she opened an artists workshop. Some of her best known mural works are located in Cuba including, Canto a la Revolución, Atomos y Niños, Revolución Cubana, Infancia, Maternidad and Palomas. Electa did not sign her works.
Arenal returned to Mexico in 1965, and started working with artist David Alfaro Siqueiros mural team. David Alfaro Siqueiros was Arenal's father's brother in law and her uncle.Death and legacy
She died on June 12, 1969, when she fell from a scaffold while assisting muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros in the making of the mural Marcha de la Humanidad en la tierra y hacia el Cosmos at Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros in Mexico City.
In June 2019, the exhibition Buscando a Electa celebrated the 50th anniversary of Arenal's death, and was held at the Provincial Museum of History, Holguin, Cuba.Work
This is a select list of her work found in Cuba.
- Canto a la Revolución, mural and facade, Raymundo Castro hospital, Puerto Padre, Cuba
- Atomos y Niños, bas-relief, Polyclinic of Velasco, Velasco, Cuba
- Infancia, bas-relief, Manuel Díaz Legrá Polyclinic, Holguin, Cuba
- El monumento a las Pascuas Sangrientas at the "Forest of the Heroes", in the Plaza de la Revolucion de Holguín, Holguin, Cuba
- Maternidad, Cuba
- Palomas, Cuba
- Revolución Cubana, Provincial Museum of History, Holguin, Cuba
