Doris Heyden

Doris Heyden (née Heydenreich; June 2, 1905 – September 25, 2005) was a prominent scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, particularly those of central Mexico. She was born in East Orange, New Jersey, United States. She died on September 25, 2005 from the lingering after effects of a stroke suffered in 1999.

Heyden was a member of a group of artists, writers, folklorists, scholars, and political activists who together created the "Mexican Renaissance". The exponents of this post-Revolutionary circle drew upon Mexican history and traditions while contributing to a variety of international movements including realism, Symbolism, surrealism and communism. Important members were mural painters Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, Zapotec painter Rufino Tamayo, mystical painters Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington, caricaturist and Mesoamerican scholar Miguel Covarrubias, as well as photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo.

Early life

Born Doris Heydenreich Selz in 1905, Heyden claimed noble German and Austrian descent from a family with titles going back to 1312. She spent a happy and prosperous childhood in Maplewood, New Jersey and Glencoe, Illinois with access to New York City and Chicago. Her early life was illuminated by art, music, and books. She began writing and publishing at about age ten, at first concentrating on poetry and mysteries, and then contributing to Newark, New Jersey newspapers around age thirteen. Heyden started painting even earlier, when she was five years old. Although she never became a great artist, she made her mark in another field.