Olga Costa (born Kostakowsky)
August 26, 1913 | Leipzig – June 28, 1993 | Guanajuato, Mexico
Painter
Her parents, Ana and Jankel Kostakowsky, had fled from Odessa to Germany in 1913 due to anti-Semitic pogroms. Her father, an aspiring composer and violinist, wanted to further his studies in Leipzig. In 1914, the family moved to Berlin. There, her father worked for a time at UFA; as a staunch socialist, he supported the Munich Soviet Republic and was sentenced to death in 1919, though he was not executed. In 1925, the family managed to flee to Veracruz, Mexico.
Olga Costa attended a German school there and took music lessons – later deciding to pursue art. She studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas. After four months, she dropped out of her art studies; she continued to work as a self-taught artist and developed her own distinctive artistic language. Anyone standing before her paintings sees vibrantly colored works – *_a tribute to her new home, Mexico_*—depicting the people, the landscapes, and Mexican women. Green, red, and white – the colors of Mexico – run through her paintings, which are filled with many small messages, details, and symbols.
Her best-known work is likely the large-format “La vendedora de frutas” (The Fruit Seller/1951) – an indigenous woman smiling in a work apron, surrounded by lovingly sliced fruits. “At the same time, she is a self-assured woman – modern, working – she is not merely a decorative element in the painting,” said Aurelia Rager, a curatorial intern at the MdbK Leipzig in 2022/23.
Costa sought artistic exchange – including with Frida Kahlo. Her first solo exhibition took place in 1945 at the Galería de Arte Mexicana. She found happiness – both artistically and personally – with the Mexican painter José Chávez Morado. The marriage remained childless; the couple founded a small museum and lived a secluded life in the countryside. She created landscape paintings, large wall mosaics, and, time and again, scenes of everyday life in Mexico.
To this day, she is revered and celebrated as one of the key figures of Mexican modernism and is currently being rediscovered, particularly in Germany. In 1990, Olga Costa was awarded Mexico’s most prestigious prize, the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes, for her art. The first solo exhibition of Olga Costa’s works in Europe took place in 2022/2023 in her hometown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig.
NOTE: *) Due to the exhibition format, the biographical information above had to be abbreviated. Exhibition visitors have the opportunity to read an expanded version of the biographical information in the exhibition brochures available on site. The entire, very extensive project includes additional biographies, expanded content, and research … is in progress – also online…