Héctor Nájera, painter, poet, engraver and sculptor was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He studied drawing, painting and sculpture with the master Antonio Decanini in Monterrey, N.L. (1946-1948). He obtained a scholarship to study sculpture at the "Tecnologico de Monterrey Institute" with the master Adolfo Labner (1949). He taught literature at the University of Nuevo Leon. And at the age of 20, he emigrated to de U.S., where he set up his studio in Los Angeles, California. During that period (1950-1964), he exhibited his paintings at many galleries across the U.S. and Europe. He lived and worked in New York, London, and Paris for short periods of time. Bernard Lewin from Los Angeles, California and George Gastini from Beverly Hills, California, both art promoters launched his art to an international level. More than 14 years later, Nájera returned to Mexico and settle down in Guadalajara where he currently resides.
In Mexico, he made a deep reflection into the possibility of renewing his style of painting, created a complete repertoire of shapes, lines, colors and textures that reached a special importance and manifested Najera's personal style.
“This Fascinating artist seems to have traveled through circles of modern art without having been influenced thereby in the least. Calmly, serenely, with delicate precision --- one might even say indolently --- he accepts the discipline of traditional technique. And undoubtedly it is impossible to discern in his works other indications of the modern spirit than, lightly, that taste for fantasy which rules the choice of details in his fabulous compositions. Thus he tempers the discipline of his craftsmanship by the singular freedom of his subject matter. He came to Paris. In very few years Nájera acquired a prestigious reputation internationally as a portrait painter. Simultaneously, he attracted the attention of the Paris and New York public, an artist with a poet's heart, animating dreamy figures of child and Madonna in a semi-primitive stile. His success was immediate. With all his talent, Nájera would be merely a clever virtuoso, like many we have seen among the modern primitives, if he did not infuse into his works the breath of tenderness and fragile humor -- and one does not know what mystery of the soul -- which give his paintings naive grace and quality. It is by these characteristics that he was able to inspire M. Paul Guth to write a series of brilliant prose-poems, dedicated to his paintings, and published in 1961 together with a study of the artist".
Through the passage of his 50 years of artistic work, Hector Najera´s master works can be found at the principal private and public collections in more than 100 countries around the world, at more than 50 museums in 30 countries, as well as in 55 countries represented at the Organization of the United Nations in the City of New York. We can also find his works at 24 Foreing Embassies in the City of Mexico, as well as at 100 universities in 23 countries. The Government of Mexico has 40 of his paintings (Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores) and other 40 large format paintings belonging to the National Institute of Fine Arts of Mexico (INBA). 25 paintings in Corporations and Associations from several foreign countries such as the UNESCO in Paris, France and the European Community in Brussels, Belgiu. |
