“Insist on yourself . . .” from the Series Great Ideas of Western Man

Pedro Friedeberg is a Mexican artist and furniture designer. Friedeberg, whose family fled to Mexico from Italy in 1940, has spent his career working against prevailing currents of Mexican art. After studying architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Friedeberg rejected the international style of design that was popular in the country in favor of an aesthetic combining fantasy, surrealism, architectural drawing, and religious and mystical symbolism. He continues to live and work in Mexico, regularly exhibiting his work there as well as in the United States and Europe.