Gabriel Vargas (artist)

Characters of Gabriel Vargas at the Estanquillo Museum (Mexico City). From left to right: Borola, Regino Burrón, Jilemón Metralla and Avelino.

Gabriel Vargas Bernal (Tulancingo, Hidalgo, February 5, 1915 - Mexico City, May 25, 2010) was a cartoonist who created the comic series The Burrón family , one of the most important references of this art within the popular culture of Mexico.

Biography

On February 5, 1915, the famous Mexican cartoonist Gabriel Vargas was born in the city of Tulancingo, Hidalgo, a prominent cartoonist from an early age. In 1930 he won second prize in an international drawing competition held in Osaka (Japan). The then director of Culture of the National Institute of Fine Arts, Alfonso Pruneda, offered him a scholarship to study drawing in Paris, but he declined it to work as an illustrator in the newspaper Excélsior. At the age of 17, he was already head of the Drawing Department.

After his first wife died, with whom he had two children, he married the journalist Guadalupe Appendini in 1976.

In 1980 he suffered a stroke from working more than 20 hours a day, but continued to draw. He eventually died in May 2010.

Comics

• The Burrón Family (1948-2009).
• The Life of Christ.
• Sherlock Juan.
• Pancho López.
• The Great Putin.
• The Chiflates.
• The Twelve.
• Perico soup.
• The Chango Del Fori.

Awards and recognitions

• In 1983 Gabriel Vargas won the Mexican National Journalism Award in Caricature, for his work done at the Panamericana Editorial.
• In 2003, he received the National Prize for Science and Arts in the area of Popular Arts and Traditions.
• On 21 November 2007, he received a recognition from the government of Mexico City as a distinguished citizen.

Legacy

La Familia Burrón was a half-letter magazine, published since 1948 and stopped publishing in number 1616, corresponding to August 26, 2009. An anthology printed by Editorial Porrúa and selected by the author is currently published. The entire collection is on display in a museum in Florence, Italy; In addition, he contributes to the chair on Mexican society that is taught at the University of the Sorbonne, in Paris.

The Museo del Estanquillo (by Carlos Monsiváis), in Mexico City, also dedicates a room to La Familia Burrón, his most famous series.

Similarly, in Regina street, located in the Historic Center of Mexico City, in 2010, a mural was painted with the Burrón, as a tribute to Vargas, Frida Kahlo, Carlos Monsiváis and other characters, called Dream of a Sunday afternoon in Callejón del Cuajo. In September 2013 it was vandalized by graffiti artists, but its complete restoration was possible. It is a reference to Diego Rivera's work called Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central.