History of Wood Alebrije

History

The alebrijes are handicrafts from Mexico. They are made of paper and /or cardboard, and wood, characterized by great spiritual value and the distinguished bright and colorful colors with which they are painted, are imaginary beings created from combinations of fantastic and real animals.

The history of the Alebrijes (wood carvings), remote to the 50's, where the pioneer was Manuel Jiménez, who began to make wood carvings of copal masks, saints, animals and Nahuales warlocks, to market them in the state with the local people. It wasn't until long after a foreigner arrived, he liked Manuel's carvings and asked him to paint some pieces that he would sell outside the country.
Manuel without knowledge of paintings began to experiment with all kinds of natural paintings, but it was noticed that they were not effective in carvings, until some time later he found the acrylic paintings, which today are the main painting for the alebrijes

The term Alebrijes came from pedro Linares' paper and cardboard creations, but it was in 1980 that both artists traveled to the United States and performed at an event for the dissemination of their art, where people began to notice the similarity of Pedro Linares' creations to Manuel Jiménez's, and at that time the term Alebrije for wood carving was coined.

 

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