Fernando Leal Audirac is a refined artist moving on an extremely personal path that renders him immune from easy labelling.

He was born in Mexico City into a family of artists. His father Fernando Leal (1896–1964) was one of the founders of the Mexican Muralist movement of the Twenties.

From 1974 to 1978, Fernando Leal Audirac studied Medieval and Renaissance painterly techniques under the direction of Master Guillermo Sánchez Lemus. Together with Professor Manuel Serrano, he founded in 1978 the “Restauro” workshop in Mexico City, specializing in the research of contemporary reinterpretation of the classic artistic techniques such as fresco, encaustic, egg tempera and oil painting.

In the period from 1980 to 1985 he practiced lithography and etching at the “Taller de Gráfica Popular” with Master Printmaker José Sánchez.

1989 to 1993, he was a founding member and academic tutor of the Curatorial Commission of the Mexican National Council for the Arts (Comisión Consultiva del FONCA).

In the 1980s, he founded an intellectual Salon (the Friday Group) at his home, attended by prominent personalities of the international cultural scene, among whom: Juan Acha, Arturo González Cosío, Ernesto de la Peña, Michael Tracy, José Luis Cuevas, Miguel Peraza, Phil Kelly, Mahia Biblos, Jens Jesen, Pierre Restany, Shifra Goldman, Arnold Belkin, Francis Alÿs, and Jan William.

In 1993 he was the first artist of his generation to have a solo exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. In 1995 he represented Mexico at the Centennial of the Venice Biennale, where he exhibited again in 2001. In 1996 he was appointed guest professor at École nationale supérieure d’art in Nancy, France.

He has written numerous essays on art and literature and participated in several international symposia regarding art, science and environment organized by the European Environmental Tribunal.

Painter, designer, etcher, fresco-painter, sculptor, Leal Audirac is an expert of ancient painterly techniques such as fresco, encaustic, oil and egg tempera revisited by the artist in a very contemporary key.

The artist is also in constant dialogue with the inputs offered by the most advanced multimedia technologies and works closely with international research centres on innovative materials.

In 2003 he portrayed Pope John Paull II from life in a 10 meter long fresco, the largest papal portrait ever made.

In his research on fresco he has developed a special technique of “transportable fresco” on double curved synthetic supports in which the fresco monumentality and eternity merge with the lightness of Oriental drawing in the creation of a new pictorial language that could be defined as “monumental intimacy”.

The artist has shown his work in galleries and museums in the US, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Hungary, Rumania, Korea and South America. His works are present in important private and museum collections around the world.

Since 1993, he lives between Milan and Mexico City.