Francisco Toledo (b. Mexico City, 1940 – d. Oaxaca City, 2019) was a celebrated Zapotec artist, widely regarded as one of the most significant artists and cultural leaders in modern Mexican history, with a career that spanned more than seven decades. A noted activist as well as artist, Toledo championed his home state of Oaxaca, where he returned in the 1980s after a period living and studying abroad in Paris and New pppYork. Known as “El Maestro,” Toledo was instrumental in the creation of several of the region’s most important cultural
centers, including the Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca (IAGO), the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), Centro de las Artes de San Agustín (CaSA), and the Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Oaxaca and the Centro Superior de Artes Aplicadas del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.
Toledo’s prolific body of work, across graphic arts, pottery, painting, and weaving, is in major private and public collections worldwide, including the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. He was in the Venice Biennale in 1997, received the National Prize for Arts and Sciences from the government of Mexico in 1998, and has
been the subject of retrospectives at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Spain.