Octavio Medellin (1907-1999) was born in Mexico. His family fled during the Mexican Revolution to San Antonio, where he studied under the famed painter Jose Arpa. Medellin later enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, spent time in Mexico, and developed his skill as a sculptor. He eventually moved to Denton, Texas and thence to Dallas, where he founded the Medellin School of Sculpture. Medellin's work helped open modernism in Texas to "primitive" art forms and at the same time integrated Mexican and U.S. artistic traditions. Southern Methodist University established the Octavio Medellin Collection in 1994.

Medellin's work rarely comes up for sale. Since 1999 only twelve of his pieces have been offered at auction--most of them sculptures, whose sale prices have ranged from roughly $1,000 to $20,000. 

SOURCE:

Katie Robinson Edwards, MIDCENTURY MODERN ART IN TEXAS (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), 219-220, 282.

Askart.com (accessed May 17, 2016).