Oswaldo Guayasamín
Rigoberta Menchú, 1996
Oil on canvas
39-3/8" x 39-3/8"
Oswaldo Guayasamín
Madre y niño (Mother and Child), 1989
Oil on canvas
43-5/16" x 43-5/16"
“Painting is a form of prayer at the same time as a shout. It is almost a physiological attitude and the highest consequence of love and society.”
Of Rage and Redemption: The Art of Oswaldo Guayasamín is the first U.S. exhibit in almost sixty years of the work of one of the most highly regarded Latin American artists of the twentieth century. It presents over forty works by master Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín, from his early paintings responding to Ecuador's four-day civil war of 1932 to his final works of the 1980s. They speak to issues of war and peace, social conflict, and human compassion, reflecting not only the artist's Latin American roots but also speaking to problems that the world continues to face today.
Guayasamín was born in Quito on July 6, 1919. From the age of 7 he began drawing and painting, and he entered the School of Fine Arts at 12. It was there that he developed his artistic talents and skills.As early as the 1940s, he had already begun to concentrate subjects that would characterize his work throughout his entire career: he painted scenes of extraordinary compassion that showed the bond between mother and child, as well as work responding to the violence and cruelty of the world.
After graduating, he had his first major exhibition in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1942. This was followed by a seven-month tour of museums in the United States, including an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York alongside such other influential Latin American artists as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco. During this time Guayasamín traveled to Mexico and other areas of Latin America with Orozco, and his painted messages of hope to the struggling indigenous peoples reveal the influence of that experience. It was also during this period that the artist held a landmark solo exhibition at the Organization of American States (formerly the Pan-American Union).
Events of the 1960s and 1970s motivated Guayasamín to become increasingly political during those years, named La edad de ira ("The Age of Wrath"). His works of this time commented on the state of the world with a forceful message in favor of social and political change. By the mid 1980s, however, Guayasamín once again returned to his earlier themes of the bond between mother and child and an overall sense of hope for humankind. His final exhibits were held at the Palace Museum of Luxembourg in Paris and the Museo Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires, both in 1995. He died on March 10, 1999, at age 79.
Guayasamín's work has been exhibited throughout the world, in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Prague, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, and Warsaw; Of Rage and Redemption, however, marks the first time in two generations that his work comes to the United States in a solo exhibition. It covers each of Guayasamín’s major artistic periods, examining the life and art of one of the most compelling figures in Latin American art.
– Oswaldo Guayasamín
Of Rage and Redemption: The Art of Oswaldo Guayasamín is the first U.S. exhibit in almost sixty years of the work of one of the most highly regarded Latin American artists of the twentieth century. It presents over forty works by master Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín, from his early paintings responding to Ecuador's four-day civil war of 1932 to his final works of the 1980s. They speak to issues of war and peace, social conflict, and human compassion, reflecting not only the artist's Latin American roots but also speaking to problems that the world continues to face today.
Guayasamín was born in Quito on July 6, 1919. From the age of 7 he began drawing and painting, and he entered the School of Fine Arts at 12. It was there that he developed his artistic talents and skills.As early as the 1940s, he had already begun to concentrate subjects that would characterize his work throughout his entire career: he painted scenes of extraordinary compassion that showed the bond between mother and child, as well as work responding to the violence and cruelty of the world.
After graduating, he had his first major exhibition in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1942. This was followed by a seven-month tour of museums in the United States, including an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York alongside such other influential Latin American artists as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco. During this time Guayasamín traveled to Mexico and other areas of Latin America with Orozco, and his painted messages of hope to the struggling indigenous peoples reveal the influence of that experience. It was also during this period that the artist held a landmark solo exhibition at the Organization of American States (formerly the Pan-American Union).
Events of the 1960s and 1970s motivated Guayasamín to become increasingly political during those years, named La edad de ira ("The Age of Wrath"). His works of this time commented on the state of the world with a forceful message in favor of social and political change. By the mid 1980s, however, Guayasamín once again returned to his earlier themes of the bond between mother and child and an overall sense of hope for humankind. His final exhibits were held at the Palace Museum of Luxembourg in Paris and the Museo Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires, both in 1995. He died on March 10, 1999, at age 79.
Guayasamín's work has been exhibited throughout the world, in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Prague, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, and Warsaw; Of Rage and Redemption, however, marks the first time in two generations that his work comes to the United States in a solo exhibition. It covers each of Guayasamín’s major artistic periods, examining the life and art of one of the most compelling figures in Latin American art.