Rodrigo Guti?rrez

(b San Luis Potos?, 1848; d Mexico City, 1903). Mexican painter. He studied at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City (1865-71) and was an outstanding pupil of the painter Pelegr?n Clav?. He was considered one of the finest portrait painters of his time, but like the rest of his fellow pupils Guti?rrez also practised history painting. One of his most remarkable group portraits was a key work in the development of national subject-matter in Mexican painting, The Tlaxcala Senate (oil on canvas, 1874; Mexico City, Mus. N.A.). This is a large canvas with many almost life-size figures, and, unlike other paintings of Mexican subjects, it shows well executed realism in the treatment of the individual figures despite the classicizing style of the poses and composition. Guti?rrez taught painting at the Instituto de Zacatecas, Mexico City, but his career ended abruptly in 1884, when he suffered brain damage in a fall from his horse.

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