Temixco, Mexico, (September 1967 to June 1968)

Temixco, Mexico, September 1967 to June 1968

That same September, Sandra and Peter travelled from Ft. Lauderdale to Temixco, Mexico, outside Cuernavaca.  Below is a photo of Sandra and Pat in Ft. Lauderdale with the VW van Sandra and Peter drove to Mexico, where they spend the next nine months.

Sandra and Peter arrived in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico on September 21, 1968, as appears from the stamp in Sandra’s passport.  The only name Peter and Sandra had when they drove to Mexico was that of Mathias Goeritz, whose contact information Henry Moore had given to Peter during his visit to Moore’s studio.  Peter and Sandra contacted Goeritz, pictured below, who loaned them his and his 3rd wife’s simple country house and large adjoining concrete studio for the next nine months.  Sandra briefly taught English at the English-American Institute in Cuernavaca.

Context: Werner Mathias Goeritz Brunner (April 4, 1915, to August 4, 1990), was a well-known Mexican painter and sculptor.  He was born in Danzig, Germany in 1915, and spent his childhood in Berlin.  He began studying philosophy and the history of art at Berlin’s Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität, now known as the Humboldt University of Berlin, in 1934.  He received a doctorate in art history from that University in 1940.  During his studies, he trained as an artist at the Kunstgewerbe-und Handwerkerschule in Berlin-Charlottenberg, and applied arts and trandesmen’s school), where he studied drawing with German artists, Max Kaus and Hans Orlowski.  Upon completing his doctorate, he worked at Berlin’s National Galler, now the Alte Nationalgalerie, under the supervision of nineteenth-centrury art specialist Paul Ortwin Rave.  In early 1941, during World War II, he left Germany, settling first in Tetuan Morocco.  He married Marianne Gast in 1942, and the couple settled in Granda, Spain in 1945, just after the war ended.

Goeritz’s career as a professional artist began with his first solo exhibition at the Librería-Galería Clan in Madrid in June 1946 under the pseudonym “Ma-Gó”. The Goeritzs relocated to Madrid in 1947.  Through the intervention of Mexican architect, Ignacio Diaz Morales, Goeritz was offered a job teaching art history to the students of the newly founded Escuela de Arquitectura in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1949.  Goeritz married a second time to Ida Rodríguez Prampolini, a distinguished art historian and mother of his only child, a son named LM Daniel. Towards the end of his life, he married a Mexican journalist in Cuernavaca.

In 1953, Goeritz first presented his “Manifiesto de la Arquitectura Emocional” (Emotional Architecture Manifesto) at the pre-inauguration of the Museo Experimental El Eco, in Mexico City, which he designed in 1952-53. Goeritz also collaborated with Luis Barragán to make monumental abstract sculptures in reinforced concrete during the 1950s.  

When Sandra and Peter met Goeritz, they learned that he was a friend of Ivan Illich, the Roman Catholic priest and theologian.  Goeritz continued to exhibit widely in Mexico and beyond throughout his life, and had a significant influence on younger Mexican artists. He died in Mexico City on August 4, 1990.

Below are photos of Sandra and Peter in the yard of Mathias Goeritz’s home in Temixco.

When Peter was not busy with his art, he and Sandra explored the countryside. In the photo below, they are scaling a small mountain in the countryside.

The nine months Peter and Sandra spent in Mexico also gave Sandra time to reflect when she wasn’t working and when Peter was busy with his art.

During their stay in Mexico, Sandra and Peter adopted a fox kit as a pet and named him Beppy. They found Beppy’s mother being sold by the side of a road with her one remaining kit, who was still nursing. They kept mother and kit in the kitchen, which was a separate room with a wooden door and a screened window. The mother fox slept on top of the small refrigerator and descended to eat and to nurse Beppy. When Beppy was no longer dependent upon his mother and could eat on his own, Sandra and Peter drove the mother back to the rural place where they had found her and set her free. After that, Beppy was raised with their kitten and thought himself a cat. When their stay ended, Sandra wanted to bring the fox back to Florida but required permission from the U.S. Embassy and a vaccination certificate.  On June 27, 1969, Sandra received a certificate of vaccination allowing her to return to the U.S. with their pet fox, Beppy, from Mexico.  An authorization to transport the fox was issued on June 24, 1969.