It was not necessary to know that Emilia Ortiz is one of the best Mexican painters to realize that we were admiring the work of an exceptional artist, skilled in the line from her early work, exquisite in the expression of her senses and faithful to the signs of the reality of its endearing Nayarit.
His teacher Manuel Rodríguez Lozano affirmed, on the occasion of the first pictorial exhibition of Emilia Ortiz presented at the National College of Architects in May 1955: “I am amazed by the strength, the quality and the encounter with herself [and] her passionate desire for universality … It is a compliment to me to say these words about the work of Emilia Ortiz, whom I consider to be the best painter in Mexico ”.
Years later, in 1973, in front of the author's work at the Degollado theater in Guadalajara, the Jalisco poet Elías Nandino recognized Emilia's dominance over drawing and a discipline that led her to perfect her plastic work. In turn, Antonio Rodríguez, a renowned art critic, approached the author's work on the occasion of the presentation of a retrospective-tribute at the OMR gallery in 1986, and highlighted the diversity of her creation and her ability to change in time.
It is impossible to deny the identification of Emilia Ortiz with the Mexican school of painting, as it is also unnecessary to say, after admiring her work, that beyond the "isms", the schools, the styles and the fashions, Emilia is above all an artist faithful to her emotions, her passions and her inner world. Away from social chronicles and self-promotion, Emilia Ortiz, in addition to her pictorial work, has cultivated poetry and journalism. His cartoons and his book Dichos y refranes are an unmistakable example of his enormous wisdom, his humor and his love for the Mexican and Nayarit traditions.
I can only congratulate myself for having been lucky enough that, by chance of fate, a magnificent and well-cared book came into my hands in which the teacher Elisa García Barragán revealed to us the surprising biography of the painter; The book, Emilia Ortiz, Life and Work of a Passionate Woman, presents us with a retrospective of her work, which has as a constant the trade and the skill of the line that allows herself all the freedoms, even the most important: that of remaining faithful to his calling from his early days.
After rewriting her work, reading the texts of those who were close and knowing that Emilia Ortiz has brought together an extraordinary work in more than seventy years of professional life, the name of another outstanding woman came to mind, Dulce María Loynaz (Cervantes prize of literature) who waited, weaving words, as Emilia Ortiz does with colors, for young people to peek out on tiptoe to admire his work.
