Alva de la Canal born in Mexico City, 29 August, 1892. Mexican painter and draughtsman. He studied at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City from 1910. In 1917 he was employed as a draughtsman by the Ministry of Agriculture and began to attend the Escuela de Pintura al Aire Libre de Santa Anita under Alfredo Ramos Martínez, his palette gradually lightening. In 1921 he was appointed assistant draughtsman in the Ministry of Education and then tutor at the Academia de San Carlos. In 1922 he was commissioned by the Ministry of Education to paint a mural, the Landing of the Cross (fresco, 7 x 8 mts; Mexico City, Escuela Nacional Preparatoria), an allegorical depiction of the implantation of Catholicism in New Spain in the 16th century, with large classical figures set in a steeply inclined composition. Over the next 40 years, Alva de la Canal painted six public murals with allegorical and historical themes, such as the Life of Morelos (encaustic and fresco, 1937; Janitzio, near Pátzcuaro). This is a sculptural monument to Morelos, into which the painting is inserted, and which depicts scenes from the life of the Independence figure arranged in an ascending spiral form around the interior of the monument. He died in Mexico City in April 4, 1985.
