Artistic Work

Artistic career

Already as a child, Horacio Rentería Rocha has painted rustic landscapes and faces on faded house facades of his hometown. Preferably, he painted in his infantile creative period with clay, lime, and pieces of burnt coal.

As a young artist Horacio Rentería Rocha became a student of the famous painter William de Lourdes. From his teacher he learned how to prepare the materials for wall paintings/murals and how to make use of these special diluted colours. When the depictions/ murals in the Government Palace of Durango were designed in 1935, Horacio Rentería Rocha was the main assistant to his famous teacher. The wonderful wall painting/mural on the first floor of the Palace with the title 'With open arms the country protects the people' was painted by Horacio Rentería Rocha along with William de Lourdes.

In 1936 Horacio Rentería Rocha was commissioned to upgrade the artistic value of the inner courtyard at the majestic Palace of Government in Durango. On each pillar, he designed a coat of arms from municipalities of the State of Durango. In addition, he painted at this time with the support of his loyal way companion Rodrigo D'avalos, draughtsman and watercolourist from Durango, a mural in the children's school "Challito Perez Gavilin" in Durango. A year later he was authorised to paint a mural under application of the style which he learned from his teacher and well-known painter William de Lourdes, in the garden of the children's School of the 18'th of March in the town of Gomez Palacio. During his occupation as a teacher, he produced several murals in this institution. He created frescoes of unique beauty - some of them with legendary themes such as 'Red Riding Hood' based on the story by Charles Perrault, Miguel des Cervantes's "Don Quixote" and others of children and their surrounding environments. The children and their lifestyles were thematic precursors of what later labelled him and made the famous Latin American artist.

Horacio Rentería Rocha exhibited his paintings 1943 in the town of Gomez in the gallery for art decoration and was awarded in the course of which/it.

His oil paintings are mostly small panels representing idealized and magnificently dressed children. Typically, these are surrounded by beautiful Mexican cultural objects such as for example Piñatas. Pets, especially dogs and cats, are also frequently depicted with the children in the oil paintings. This is shown in his works with the children at their most beautiful moments of the game. Often, the magnificently dressed children are embedded in romantic landscapes. The composition of human figures within beautiful regional landscapes often occurs and gives his paintings a homely touch/soul. Especially mountains, hills, volcanoes, striking buildings such as churches and streets of his domestic surroundings/life were artistically included. The traditional customs of the people play a special role in his paintings and convey unity between tradition, social customs and human beings. Horacio Rentería Rocha had a passion for light, clean lines and shapes which are mirrored in his landscape paintings. His vision of a pure nature with children in magnificent costumes from their cultural heritage away from the constraints of modern civilization with its excitement and joy, is reflected by the high-contrast clarity in his paintings.

In 1948 Horacio Rentería Rocha met an art dealer who bought all of his existing and later created works of art. These were offered abroad as works of the 19th century. The art dealer honoured Horacio Rentería Rocha's works with hardly a peso and made sure to include the specific clause, that Horacio Rentería Rocha has to stay anonymous as a painter of such works by making his signature illegible. The works, which were sold by the dealer at very high prices, were soon appreciated worldwide. Horacio Rentería Rocha did not benefit at all from this, but was fobbed off with some few pesos and exploited in the truest sense of the word.

Especially in New York and Paris the works of Horacio Rentería Rocha became well known and famous as "The children of Horacio".

In a sequence of the film "Rosemary's baby" by Roman Polanski, Mia Farrow is mulling over a reproduction of an artwork by Horacio Rentería Rocha.

Henry Fonda, Christian Dior, Leopold Anthony Stokowski and the community of heirs of former President Johnson are among the best-known collectors of Horacio Rentería Rocha's artworks.

Current art market and value (position)

Paintings and drawings by Horacio Rentería Rocha are traded around the world today. The international art trade has very different prices. Small format panels with typical motifs of children are available from approximately $ 20,000 on art auctions and are often unsigned.

Some works of art contain special effects that helps, among other things, to verify their authenticity. These tricks are only known by/to the family. Hereby Horacio Rentería Rocha probably wanted to create one or more indicators, so that the above mentioned anonymous artworks can be recognized as his work.

Very valuable, often acquired as a silent art investment, are works of art dedicated to his family by Horacio Rentería Rocha or paintings with his signature "Horacio", which arrived in the 1950s and 1960s in Europe and provoked enormous excitement.

In particular the Parisian art scene of the 1950s and 1960s with their preference for pure love and fleeting fashion were impressed by the paintings. Paintings and drawings by Horacio Rentería Rocha were exhibited all over the world - for example, in the Louvre Museum in Paris, at the Museo del Porto in Madrid and at the National Museum of art in Mexico City.

The more valuable works of art are now being traded in single-digit millions, particularly in the North and Latin American art market.

Pictures owned by the family

Family-owned works of art by Horacio Rentería Rocha are mainly with dedications, because they were given as gifts from the heart of utmost importance. These works differ in the form of executions in comparison to the small panels with children. They stand out, because they are highly personal and a special painting technique was used. Often these works of art by Horacio were charcoal drawings, few watercolors and one oil painting, where the frame was produced with a scraper technology of Acapulcoan sand.

The unique, signed oil painting with inserted scraper technology remained unfinished because of Horacio Rentería Rocha's progressive blindness. It is the last painting and unique portrait of a family member - the second-born son, Daniel, by his daughter Bertha- by Horacio Rentería Rocha.

The only existing self-portrait of Horacio Rentería Rocha is family-owned.

Works in the possession of the family can be found in the Art Gallery.