Portraitist Barbara Zagoria lived in Ajijic in the mid-1970s

Barbara F. Zagoria was one of the many talented artists working in Ajijic in the mid-1970s. Born in New York City on 17 February 1933, Zagoria studied at the School of Art and Design, New York City (1947-1950) and the Art Students League, New York City (1949) before taking a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida, from which she graduated in 1953. In later life she took more classes at the Art Students League in New York City (1979-1980) and did some postgraduate studies at the Special Security Team Travel School in Tempe, Arizona (1985).

Barbara Zagoria. Mexican lady and child (detail).

In January 1952 she married Sam Zagoria and began work as a fashion illustrator with the Kramer, Tobias & Meyer Agency in New York. Two years later, she left that firm to work as a fabric designer for Paragon Mills for a year.

In the 1960s, Zagoria was a commercial artist in Massapequa, New York (1965-1966) before working as a freelance illustrator and teacher in Seaford (1967-1970). She founded the Seaford Creative Arts Workshop on Long Island, New York, in 1963 and continued to work with them until 1969.

She spent most of the 1970s at various locations in Mexico, where she was best known as a portrait painter. During that time she held several solo shows, including

• Bellas Artes-Casa de la Cultura
• Hotel Acapulco Princess, Acapulco (1975-1979) and
• Hotel La Cupula, Guatemala (1977)

Barbara Zagoria. 1991. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. (North Country Blade Citizen)

Zagoria lived at Lake Chapala in the late 1970s, and held a solo show at Posada Ajijic in December 1977. This was apparently her first Lakeside show, though she was already well known in the area on account of the many paintings and posters she had done for the local theater.

In addition to exhibitions of fine art work, she also arranged public relations art exhibits for American Tourist Offices in Mexico and Guatemala.

After moving back to the U.S., Zagoria was a travel consultant for art tours organized by Ames/Plaza Travel (1986-2001) and participated in, and judged, art shows in Arizona and California. Her pastels were shown in a group exhibit in 1985 at Gallery of the Unknown in Phoenix, Arizona, and in joint shows in 1987 and 1989 at the La Jolla Art Assocation Gallery in La Jolla, California. She also held one-person shows at W. Plaza Gallery, Arizona (1985), Palomar College, California (1990), and at La Jolla, California (1991). Zagoria, a member of the California Art Association, gave demonstrations and judged numerous art shows in the state during the 1990s.

Zagoria lived “years in Mexico and New Guinea, and has visited South America, Central America, Russia and Greece among other places.” Her wide range of interests spans everything from archaeology, drama and jazz to parapsychology.

Her first husband, Sam, died in 1995. Zagoria later married David Blye, who works in stained glass. The couple live in Saddlebrooke, Tucson, Arizona, where Zagoria was, for many years, the gallery chairperson for the casual art gallery in the main clubhouse Javelina Room, used by the Saddlebrooke Fine Arts Guild.

Sources

• Guadalajara Reporter: 24 July 1976, 21; 3 Dec 1977, 19.
• North County Blade-Citizen: 5 July 1991, 216.
• Newsday (Nassau Edition): 8 Aug 1963, 80.
• Arizona Republic (Phoenix): 13 Nov 1985, 232.
• Wm. A. “Antonio” Rigney. 2010. “At David’s and Barbara’s.” Blog post, 22 August 2010.

Comments, corrections and additional material are welcome, whether via comments or email.

Tony Burton

Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).

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