Francisco Corzas Chávez was a Mexican

Mexican people

Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 and printmaker who extablished himself as a leading Expressionist artist in the 1960s and '70s.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Corzas began his art studies at the age of fourteen. Several years later he was admitted into La Esmeralda

Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda"

La Esmeralda - National School of Painting, Sculpture and Printmaking is a Mexican art school located in Mexico City....

, an art school where "he was instructed by such established artists as María Izquierdo

María Izquierdo

María Izquierdo was a Mexican painter. She was born in San Juan de los Lagos in the state of Jalisco; her birth name was María Cenobia Izquierdo Gutiérrez. Her father died when she was five years old and she lived with grandparents afterward in small towns of Aguascalientes, Torreón, and Saltillo...

, Juan Soriano

Juan Soriano

Juan Soriano was a Mexican painter and sculptor.Soriano, son of Rafael Rodríguez Soriano and Amalia Montoya Navarro, was born in Guadalajara and displayed his first painting at age 14...

, Carlos Orozco Romero

Carlos Orozco Romero

Carlos Orozco Romero was a Mexican artist.Orozco was self-trained, and was awarded a scholarship for a study trip to Europe in 1921. In 1939 he achieved a Guggenheim Fellowship and travelled to New York City in 1941...

 and Agustín Lazo". Corzas moved to Rome in 1955 where he completed his studies at the Accademia di San Giacomo, as well as at the Accademia di Bella Arti e Liceo Artistico.

Though Corzas faced great economic hardship early on, in 1960 his art was awarded the silver medal

Silver medal

A silver medal is a medal awarded to the second place finisher of contests such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and contests with similar formats....

 at the Via Margutta International Art Fair, an event which changed his artistic fortune dramatically
After living in Rome for five years and briefly touring Europe Corzas returned to Mexico City, where he established himself as a leading Expressionist artist, showing works at international exhibitions in New York, Rome, Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

 and San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...

. In the 1970s his lithographs were commissioned by major publishers in Paris, Rome, and New York.

Corzas was a member of Los Interioristas, an arts association dedicated to the defense of humanistic values.