Juan Gerson

Juan Gerson (active c. 1562) was a high status indigenous Nahua painter, named after the French theologian Jean Gerson, working in Tecamechalco, Puebla. Not until 1962 when a group of Mexican scholars found documentation to his high status indigenous heritage was Gerson identity revealed. It was previously thought he was Flemish, trained in Italy, working from entirely within the European tradition before coming to colonial Mexico. Art historians Carolyn Dean and Dana Leibsohn consider Gerson's case of misrecognition as "reveal[ing] once again our refusal to recognize the indigene unless his or her work is visibly pre-Hispanic. Further, the revisions of scholarship that follow the discovery of these artists' genetic make-up involve a literal re-seeing of their work." Mexican art histori

Juan Gerson

Juan Gerson (active c. 1562) was a high status indigenous Nahua painter, named after the French theologian Jean Gerson, working in Tecamechalco, Puebla. Not until 1962 when a group of Mexican scholars found documentation to his high status indigenous heritage was Gerson identity revealed. It was previously thought he was Flemish, trained in Italy, working from entirely within the European tradition before coming to colonial Mexico. Art historians Carolyn Dean and Dana Leibsohn consider Gerson's case of misrecognition as "reveal[ing] once again our refusal to recognize the indigene unless his or her work is visibly pre-Hispanic. Further, the revisions of scholarship that follow the discovery of these artists' genetic make-up involve a literal re-seeing of their work." Mexican art histori