Elena Izcue

Elena Izcue Cobián was born in 1889, in Lima, Peru; she was a twin and her sister was Victoria.{{Cite book |last=Majluf |first=Natalia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9aJdAAAAMAAJ |title=Elena Izcue: el arte precolombino en la vida moderna |date=1999 |publisher=Museo de Arte de Lima |isbn=978-84-930522-7-0 |pages=27 |language=es}} Their parents were María Antolina Cobián, and José Rafael de Izcue. At a very young age, both daughters had to work, and they worked as teachers.

In 1910, Izcue was appointed professor of drawing at the School Center of Callao. In the publication La Escuela Moderna (1914), she designed the cover using pre-Columbian elements.

In 1919, she began her studies at the National Superior Autonomous School of Fine Arts, Lima.{{Cite book |last=Moore |first=Melisa |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6lRzAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 |title=José Carlos Mariátegui’s Unfinished Revolution: Politics, Poetics, and Change in 1920s Peru |date=December 18, 2013 |publisher=Bucknell University Press |isbn=978-1-61148-463-2 |pages=20 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Vázquez |first=Oscar E. |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Academies_and_Schools_of_Art_in_Latin_Am/wAfoDwAAQBAJ? |title=Academies and Schools of Art in Latin America |date=2020-05-28 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-18753-4 |language=en |chapter=8) The First Decade of Peru's National School of Fine Arts |via=Google Books}} She was a student of Daniel Hernández Morillo and José Sabogal. While in school she became interested in pre-Hispanic art, and met Philip Ainsworth Means, an American anthropologist working as the director of the archaeology section of the National Museum of Peru.{{Cite journal |date=April 1945 |title=Philip Ainsworth Means |url=https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807112.pdf |url-status=live |journal=Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society |pages=35–37 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504024445/https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44807112.pdf |archive-date=2023-05-04 |access-date=}} This connection to Means allowed her access to view the pre-Columbian pieces in the museum.

She published two volumes of the book, Peruvian Art in School: a Manual for Teaching Drawing in Peruvian Schools (1926 and 1929) ({{Langx|es|El arte peruano en la escuela: un manual para la enseñar deldibujo en las escuelas peruanos}}), which was well received by Peruvian president Augusto B. Leguía, and Izcue was awarded a two-year pension to study in Paris.{{Cite web |title=El arte peruano en la escuela - II |url=https://icaa.mfah.org/s/es/item/1146115#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-837,0,2947,1649 |access-date=2025-01-30 |website=ICAA Documents Project en Español · ICAA/MFAH}} She traveled with her twin sister Victoria Izcue to Paris, where they visited various workshops to help them establish a decorative arts practice. In 1933, she continued her studies for a year at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and under painter Fernand Léger. The sisters travelled for a month to New York City in 1935, for an exhibition of their work shown alongside archeological works from Peru at the Fuller Building, and after they returned to Paris, where they remained until 1938 due to the looming threat of World War II.{{Cite news |date=1935-11-17 |title=Peruvian Art Used In Modern Designs; Izcue Sisters to Display Their Assimulation of Ancient Symbolism Here |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1935/11/17/archives/peruvian-art-used-in-modern-designs-izcue-sisters-to-display-their.html |access-date=2025-01-30 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} On their way home to Peru, they stopped in New York City to advise on the design the Peruvian Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

In the summer of 1939, they arrived in Lima. By 1940 the National Workshop of Applied Graphic Arts was formed in Lima, under the direction of Elena and the administration of Victoria. She continued this teaching until 1950, after in which she dedicated the next twenty years to the creation of her own work of textile designs, paintings, and drawings.

She died in September 27, 1970, in Lima. Her artwork can be found in museum collections, including at the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado; and the Museo de Arte de Lima in Lima, Peru.{{Cite web |title=Elena Izcue |url=https://coleccion.mali.pe/people/431/elena-izcue |access-date=2025-01-29 |website=Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI) |language=es}}

In 2024, at the 60th Venice Biennale Izcue's artwork was posthumously shown alongside other artists from Peru, including José Sabogal, Julia Codesido, Santiago Yahuarcani (born 1960), Rember Yahuarcani (born 1985), and Violeta Quispe (born 1989).{{Cite news |last=Carlos Fangacio Arakaki |first=Juan |date=2024-04-18 |title=El Perú en la Bienal de Venecia: por qué se espera una participación histórica, inédita y más diversa que nunca |url=https://elcomercio.pe/somos/historias/el-peru-en-la-bienal-de-venecia-por-que-se-espera-una-participacion-historica-inedita-y-mas-diversa-que-nunca-arte-austria-exhibicion-historias-ec-noticia/#google_vignette |access-date=2025-01-30 |work=El Comercio |language=es-PE |issn=1605-3052}}

• {{Cite book |title=La Escuela Moderna |date=1914 |others=Elena Izcue (cover artist) |language=es}}
• {{Cite book |title=La leyenda de Manco Capac |date=1923 |editor-last=Larco Herrera |editor-first=Rafael |editor-link=Rafael Larco Herrera |language=es}}{{Cite web |date=June 1923 |title="Manco Cápac - Leyenda Nacional" [PE-AAP-XEI-3.2-11] |url=https://archivo.mali.pe/index.php/Detail/objects/1994 |access-date=2025-01-29 |website=Archivo MALI |publisher=Varidades}}
• {{Cite book |last=Izcue |first=Elena |title=El arte peruano en la escuela: un manual para la enseñar deldibujo en las escuelas peruanos |date=1926 |publisher=Editorial Excelsior |volume=I |location=Paris |language=es |trans-title=Peruvian Art in School: a Manual for Teaching Drawing in Peruvian Schools}}{{Cite web |title=El arte peruano en la escuela - I |url=https://icaa.mfah.org/s/es/item/1146099#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-1116,0,3930,2199 |access-date=2025-01-30 |website=ICAA Documents Project en Español · ICAA/MFAH}}
• {{Cite book |last=Izcue |first=Elena |title=El arte peruano en la escuela: un manual para la enseñar deldibujo en las escuelas peruanos |date=1929 |publisher=Editorial Excelsior |volume=II |location=Paris |language=es |trans-title=Peruvian Art in School: a Manual for Teaching Drawing in Peruvian Schools}}

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• [https://archivo.mali.pe/index.php/Detail/objects/2477 Photo of Elena and Victoria Izcue] (1930), via Lima Art Museum (MALI)

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Category:1889 births

Category:1970 deaths

Category:20th-century Peruvian artists

Category:20th-century Peruvian painters

Category:Artists from Lima

Category:Graphic artists

Category:Peruvian illustrators

Category:Peruvian textile artists

Category:National Superior Autonomous School of Fine Arts, Lima alumni