Francisco Toledo

Francisco Toledo is a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. He was influenced by folk art, Surrealism, and artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, and Francisco Goya. His style can be characterized as hybridized, combining fantastical forms with geometric and varied textures. His work is influenced by his birthplace, Oaxaca, Mexico where myths, people, and nature are elements that play important roles. Toledo’s subjects have originated from dreams and from observation, and sometimes overlap. One of his paintings, Hidden Scorpion, playfully represents the body of a scorpion by using colorful spiraling patterns.  

Francisco Toledo has had exhibitions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Japan, Sweden, the United States, as well as other countries. His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. He also founded the Museum de Arte Contemporaneo de Oaxaca (MACO), the Patronato Pro-Defensa y Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural de Oaxaca, a library for the blind, a photographic center, and the Eduardo Mata Music Library.