Virgin of Guadalupe, Queen of Mexico and Empress of America. (2021) Drawing by Alberto Thirion

My name is Alberto Thirion and they call me the most famous painter in the world, they say it as a joke, but I liked the nickname and I have taken it as a slogan.

 The nickname or slogan was born as a logical consequence of a work entitled the death of the devil. This is the story in broad strokes, when I was still young I was exhibiting my work in the company of other fellow painters, among all the spectators who by the way this time there were many, a boy arrived who must have been rich, to whom they were going to buy a painting as a birthday present.

 The boy's mother did not want to buy the painting, but the boy was armed that this was the painting he wanted, his mother told him that how he was going to hang that painting in his room that he was surely going to have very bad nightmares, etc. Since in the play the devil appears decapitated and bleeding, -and he watched the scene without participating in it- the boy threw himself on the ground and began to have a great tantrum, hitting the ground, etc., etc.

 At the time that he said he is the most famous painter in the world, I already love her!!!, I love her!, he shouted!!! And he shouted other praises for the work that in his opinion were fair, with the desperate aim of convincing his mother, but she did not buy the work.

 That's where my fellow artists took it from to give me that nickname, years later already with the vision that time gives when seeing things in perspective. I think they unconsciously. They identified with that child, who loved that painting so much. Then that painting was stolen from me, by a thief who also wanted it, I guess, but he didn't have the money to buy it, it comforts me to think that the work took him away, the thief.

• Nationality: MEXICO
• Date of birth : 1947
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Mexican Artists