Mexican painter and art administrator. He was an ardent nationalist and a pioneer of the 20th-century renaissance of his county’s art—chapter 1 of MacKinley Helm’s book Modern Mexican Painters (1941) is entitled ‘Dr Atl, the Saint John Baptist of Mexican Art’. He painted murals, but his talent in this field was modest, and as an artist he is better known for his landscapes, particularly those featuring volcanoes, a subject in which he was passionately interested. He often worked in ‘Atl-colour’ (a kind of wax crayon).