Francisco Goitia

Francisco Bollaín y Goitia García (4 October 1882 - 26 March 1960) was a realist painter from Fresnillo in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico.

Goitia studied at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City from 1898 under the direction of German Gedovius, Jose Maria Velasco, Saturnino Herran and Julio Ruelas. In 1904 Goitia moved to Barcelona, Spain under the tutelage of the Spanish Pre-Raphaelite Francisco Galí. Goitia had his first successful exhibition at the Salon Pares. Four years later Goitia went to Rome and became interested in classical architecture. While in Italy Goitia held exhibitions and was awarded a medal for his work. With the fall of Porfirio Diaz, Goitia lost his grant and was forced to return to Mexico in 1912.

During the Mexican Revolution, Goitia worked as the official painter for General Angel of Pancho Villa's army. Goitia claims to have disinterred executed soldiers and to have hung them on cacti as models for his "Ahorcado" ("Hung People") paintings.

After the conflict, Goitia went back to Mexico City where he matured as an artist during the era of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. He was given a professorship at his alma mater. Goitia painted canvases with a blend of realism and impressionism. Goitia described painting his masterwork Tata Jesuchristo by observing Oaxacan peasants on the Day of the Dead for hours, until one grieving peasant stretched while crying and pointed her foot up. That gesture became the center of the composition.

Goitia lived most of his life as a hermit in self-imposed poverty in a shack near Xochimilco. He died on 26 March 1960 of pneumonia.

In Anita Brenner's 1929 study of Mexican Art Idols Behind Altars, Goitia is given a full chapter and is described as the most "Mexican" of Mexican artists and as the mystic of Mexican art. In 1988 Diego Lopez made a film titled "Goitia, Un Dios Para Si Mismo", in which he relates the story of the artist as a tormented soul.

The bulk of Goitia's work is viewable in the Mexican National Art Museum (MUNAL) and in the Goitia Museum in Zacatecas.

His only known descendants currently inhabit Mexico City, Zacatecas, Durango and Torreon and have since changed the last name to "Goytia" and "Bollain y Goytia".