Oswaldo Guayasamin

Art Brokerage: Oswaldo Guayasamin Ecuadorian Artist: b. 1919-1999. Oswaldo Guayasamin was a Quechua Indian and Ecuadorian master painter and sculptor. He was born in Quito, to a native father and a Mestiza mother, both of Quechua descent. His family was poor and his father worked as a carpenter for most of his life. He later worked as a taxi and truck driver. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Quito as a painter and sculptor. He also studied architecture there. He held his first exhibition when he was 23, in 1942. In 1948 he won the first prize at the Ecuadorian Sal'n Nacional de Acuarelistas y Dibujantes. In 1955, at the age of 36, he won first prize at the Third Hispano-American Biennial of Art in Barcelona, Spain, for El ata'd blanco and in 1957 he was named the best South American painter at the Fourth Biennial of Sao Paulo. During 1942 and 1943, Guayasamin traveled to the United States and Mexico, where he met Orozco. They traveled together to many of the diverse countries in Latin America. They visited Peru, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and other countries. Through these travels he observed the indigenous lifestyle and poverty that appeared in his paintings. One of his largest and most controversial paintings was a mural that he painted for the Congress of Ecuador, which, in 1988, asked him to paint a mural depicting the history of Ecuador. The United States Government criticized the mural because in one of the panels, there appeared a Nazi helmet with the lettering CIA. The artist's last exhibits were inaugurated by him personally in the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, and in the Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires in 1995. In Quito, Guayasan built a museum that features his work. Guayasamin's images capture the political oppression, racism, poverty, and class division found in much of South America. Oswaldo Guayasamin dedicated his life to painting, sculpting, collecting, however, he admired the ideals of the communist Cuban Revolution in general and Fidel Castro in particular. He is still lauded as a national treasure. In 2002, three years after his death, Oswaldo's masterwork, La Capilla del Hombre ("The Chapel of Man"), was completed and opened to the public. The Chapel is meant to document not only man's cruelty to man but also the potential for greatness within humanity. It is co-located with Guayasamin's home in the hills overlooking Quito. Listings wanted by Art Brokerage.