Tour D'horizon: May 2025
a monthly roundups of intriguing things
My research on Fred Leighton (parts one and two) took me on a million side quests this month. Among them was researching Donald Cordry, an American marionette-maker who became fascinated with contemporary Mexican Indian art, especially mask-making, during his first trip to Mexico in 1931. From 1935 to 1938, Cordry traveled around Mexico, collecting Mexican masks and other art forms on behalf of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, while also photographing many indigenous groups, particularly focusing on their production of textiles and garments. Along with his wife, he went on to publish several books based on his research and many decades living in Mexico (1938 until his death in 1978: Costumes and Textiles of the Aztec Indians of the Cuetzalan Region, Puebla, Mexico (1940), The Costumes and Weaving of the Zoque Indians of Chiapas, Mexico (1941), Mexican Indian Costumes (1968), and the posthumous, Mexican Masks (1980).
And some of his photographs of Mexico, now in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian and Arizona State Museum:
Some good things this month:
to read
All of the books I’ve read this past month have been for upcoming interviews for this newsletter (look out for those soon!), so for now, some articles and other links I’ve found intriguing…
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