Noé Canjura

Noé Canjura (born August 14, 1922 in Apopa , El Salvador , † September 29, 1970 in Morienval , France ) was a Salvadoran painter .

First steps

Canjura was born in 1922 in Apopa, a city in El Salvador in Central America. The family came from a modest background. He grew up under adverse living conditions and was familiar with the struggle to eradicate poverty and misery that was being waged in his home country.

To ease the burden of his devoted parents and to provide for his schooling, Canjura earned his living in a sawmill. He was often active late into the night and had to sleep on hard, unworked wooden boards. When he was seventeen years old his talent for drawing was discovered. And so, without knowing how or why, his adventure in the world of art began on an international level. He completed his first studies at the Academy of Drawing and Painting Valero Lecha (Academía de Dibujo y Pintura Valero Lecha) in San Salvador (1942–1946). After starting there in 1942, Canjura took part in all sorts of collective exhibitions at his college in El Salvador, and a few years later he would do the same in Guatemala .

To continue his studies, he traveled to Mexico City in 1948 , where he was largely influenced by Diego Rivera , who along with Orozco and Siqueiros had reached the height of his fame. Rivera's influence diminished and Canjura turned his attention to Gauguin . He got to know the conception of a formal order in painting and the use of curves. In the same year he held his first exhibition in the United States.

Life in paris

Canjura's life changed drastically in 1949 when he went to France to enroll in the College of Fine Arts and to undertake specialist studies in the technique of fresco painting. He received a government grant from his home country to support him.

While in Paris he was strongly drawn to the paintings of Gustave Courbet and the workshop of the Le Nain brothers . Regardless of this, he always adhered to topics that represented everyday life and customs in his home country.

In 1953 he carried out his first solo exhibition in Paris with great success; from then on France became his adopted home. Life in Paris was difficult at first. Like many others, he had to do various handicrafts in order to secure his existence. He married Madeleine Bachelet, who, like him, worked as an artist in the visual arts. This made it easier for him to carry out his work with discipline and to pay more attention to his works. Canjura's personality was torn between his abilities as a painter on the one hand and his perfectionist nature on the other.

The strong influence of his years in Paris became clear when Canjura briefly visited El Salvador in 1957. He saw his country from a new perspective, and from then on the emphasis on colors and light became an important part of his work. Canjura's painting now became a synthesis of the many influences that deeply shaped his character and his work. His paintings are both dramatic and nostalgic. Powerful, but also at the same time in all details and with great subtlety, he composed simple color drawings that suggest the principle of the abstract.

The fact that the city of Paris bought four of his paintings for its permanent exhibition in six years (1959–1965) is a further indication of his position in the world of art in Paris and of the continuous development of his work.

Canjura was a member of the National Society of Fine Arts ( Société nationale des beaux-arts ) and the Society of the Salon for Young Painting (Société de Salon de la Jeune Peinture). He exhibited regularly and with undeniable popularity in the most important galleries in Paris. His paintings were purchased for the collections of the French state, then later transferred to the National Art Museum in San Salvador, MARTE. The Hamishka Leomanuth Museum in Ein Harod, Israel, also acquired his works. In 1965 he was awarded the coveted prize, the silver medal “Prune d'Árgent” from the Galerie Maler der Provence (Salon Peintres de Provence).

Morienval

Noé Canjura died on September 29, 1970 at the age of 48 in Morienval , France, in the full development of his profession. His remains are in the cemetery of the Notre-Dame church in Morienval (Old Abbey, two hours from Paris). His daughter Leticia Canjura and granddaughter Vilma Borden live in Atlanta, United States.

Together with Julia Diaz, Raúl Elas Reyes and Rosa Mena Valenzuela, Canjura is considered an icon of his generation, currently one of the greatest movements in painting in El Salvador. But above all, Canjura symbolizes man's ability to reinvent himself: from a young, barefoot art student who lives modestly and with many restrictions, he has become a powerful creator of his own destiny in a harsh, demanding environment on a world level.

Wally Findlay, President of Findlay Galleries (New York and Chicago) said of Canjura:

"In a very short time the young artist will have reached the size of contemporary artists like Bernard Buffet and Nicola Simbari."

Web links

• National Art Museum in San Salvador, MARTE
• English version - English version
• Spanish version - Version en Español
• French version - version française
• Notre Dame de Morienval