Francisco Toledo, Mexican (1941 - )

Francisco Toledo (b 1941) was born in Juchitan, Oaxaca, México. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca and the Centro Superior de Artes Aplicadas del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, México, where he studied graphic arts with Guillermo Silva Santamaria. In 1960 he moved to Paris from where he traveled through Europe. In 1965 when he returned to México he started to promote and protect the arts and crafts in his native state of Oaxaca; he designed tapestries with the craftsmen of Teotitlan del Valle, and in 1988 he created the Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca (IAGO).

His social and cultural concerns about his native state led to his participation in the establishment of an important art library at the AIGO, and his involvement in the founding of the Museum de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca (MACO), the Patronato Pro-Defensa y Conservacion del Patrimonio Cultural de Oaxaca, a library for the blind, a photographic center, and the Eduardo Mata Music Library to name a few of his projects. Toledo's outstanding creativity has been expressed in pottery, sculpture, weaving, graphic arts, and paintings. He has had exhibitions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Belgium, France, Japan, Sweden, the United States, as well as other countries. Toledo is simultaneously an exceptional artist and a patron and guardian of the arts and the crafts of his state of Oaxaca.