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NEWS & REPORTS
index of papers
Feb 25, 2005
“50 Years of Foreigners
in San Miguel”
The Precursors - Two
Exemplary Foreigners in San Miguel: Stirling Dickinson and Felipe Cossio
del Pomar
by Holly Yasui
Two figures stand out as particularly significant in the
development of San Miguel as a place of uniquely international artistic
and cultural confluence: Felipe Cossío del Pomar from Peru and
Stirling Dickinson from the U.S. Both came to live in San Miguel in
the late 1930s, but the vision they shared and the work they did has
left a mark on the town still apparent today. The two men were similar
in terms of background – both were well educated and artistically
inclined – but quite different in terms of personalities.
Cossío, a highly respected art historian and political
activist, was sophisticated and widely traveled. He moved in cosmopolitan
circles, counting among his friends many Mexican and other Latin American
intellectuals. Dickinson, on the other hand, though a graduate of Ivy-League
Princeton University, was a shy and retiring person, who felt far more
comfortable among common people, like the members of his San Miguel
baseball team. According to John Virtue, author of a forthcoming biography
on Dickinson, he disliked formal socializing so much that he once fell
seriously ill and had to go to the hospital at the prospect of having
to attend a formal cocktail party.
Back in the 1930s, the only way to get to San Miguel was
by train … the roads into town were no more than muddy or dusty
tracks, depending on the season. Stirling Dickinson, a young writer
and art student, arrived in 1937, to visit José Mojica, the renown
opera singer who had a home in San Miguel. Dickinson fell in love with
the town and bought an old tannery building on calle Santo Domingo for
US$90 where he set up residence (according to Mary Elmendorf, in “Stirling
Dickinson and San Miguel”, http://members.lycos.co.uk/expatpaper/personalities.htm).
That same year, another foreigner stepped off that same
train with an grandiose plan: to start a Latin American school of art,
both rooted in popular culture and dedicated to the advancement of modern
art. Felipe Cossío del Pomar was some 12 years older than Dickinson,
and he had the resources and connections to make that dream come true.
A founding member of the leftist APRA party in Peru, for which he was
exiled from his country, then under a military dictatorship, he had
connections with people like Diego Rivera, José Vasconcelos,
and then-president of the Republic, Lázaro Cárdenas.
In 1938, President Cárdenas granted to Cossío
the property on calle Hernández Macías, the ex-Convent
of the Conceptionist Nuns, nearly in ruins and used as quarters for
a cavalry regiment of the Mexican Army. Cossío directed the extensive
reconstruction to accommodate art studios and classrooms, while Dickinson
took on the job of administration and promotion of the newly founded
“Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes.” Dickinson made
several trips to the U.S. and distributed more than 10,000 fliers to
universities and cultural centers throughout the U.S. and Latin America
in order to publicize the school. (Felipe Cossío del Pomar en
San Miguel, pp. 44-45).
The first students from the U.S. came to San Miguel in
the early 1940s, to work as apprentices in traditional crafts such as
pottery, leatherworking and silversmithing with local craftsmen as well
as to study fine arts with world-renown artists such as painter Rufino
Tamayo. The students were lodged at the “Rancho de Bellas Artes,”
as Cossío called the large tract of land that he purchased from
the well-known bullfighter Pepe Ortiz. Los Arcos on calle Santo Domingo
marked the entrance to the property, which extended up to what is now
the Hotel Atascadero. During this time, Cossío also hosted many
famous houseguests such as Pablo Neruda, Alfonso Reyes and Jesús
Silva Herzog (Mary Elmendorf, ibid).
The intervention of World War II, and Cossío’s
return to Peru in the mid 1940s marked a period of quiescence for the
Escuela. After the war, San Miguel was “invaded” by hundreds
of young artists peacefully armed with GI-Bill scholarships. Cossío
came back to Mexico in 1948, and belatedly discovered that the man to
whom he had entrusted the Escuela, Alfredo Campanela, was milking it
for profits. Campanela had pocketed the students’ tuition and
neglected the studios to the point that there was not enough furniture
or materials to carry on classes. At the midpoint of the century, “things
went from bad to worse” (Cossío del Pomar, ibid, p.161).
The foreign students and teachers, including Dickinson, were caught
in the crossfire of a furious disagreement between Campanela and the
radical Communist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros, who was working with
a group of students on a mural in the school.
That will be the topic of next week’s piece
on “50 Years of Foreigners in San Miguel,” as well as brief
biographical sketches of the individuals who will be participating on
March 12 in a roundtable discussion on their experiences in San Miguel.
For more information, call the Center for Global Justice, 150-0025.
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left:
Drawing of Felipe Cossío del Pomar, by Mallo López,
1952. from Cossío del Pomar en San Miguel de Allende, Editorial
Playor, c. 1974
below: Stirling Dickinson leading a tour
of gringos, probably Patzacuaro, 1950s. Photo by Peter Olwyler,
courtesy of San Miguel Archives Projec
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