You have wanted to deny my existence, I do not deny yours. I am mazahua!
Born in 1940 in the Ejido del Puente, in the municipality of Temascalcingo, Julio Garduño has been a normalist teacher, poet, writer and painter. He lives committed to the Mazahua race, of which he is partly a descendant. He is also a prominent promoter and defender of indigenous culture, autonomy and rights, as demonstrated in the dialogue he held with Pope John Paul II in 1979, which later allowed him to travel to various countries. Garduño Cervantes is the founder of the Mazahua Ceremonial Center –in whose museum some of his works can be admired– and creator of the first bilingual Spanish-Mazahua newspaper in the State of Mexico.
His love for painting began at a very young age, and at the age of ten he was already doing his pininos. Later he studied painting at the La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving and at the San Carlos Academy, where he was a student of the teacher Esteban Nava. As a painter, he has exhibited in Paris (1988), Israel, the United States and in various parts of the Mexican Republic.
Julio Garduño Cervantes, a warm and simple man, takes us by the hand through his painting, his writings and his poetry, to know and admire the Mazahua race.
