Oswaldo Guayasamín

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Guayasamin factory at Madrid-Barajas airport

Oswaldo Guayasamín (born July 6, 1919 in Quito , † March 10, 1999 in Baltimore ) was a painter and sculptor and probably the most important visual artist in Ecuador of the 20th century .

Life

Oswaldo Guayasamín was the son of an indigenous father and a mestizo mother and the first of ten children. Oswaldo's artistic abilities were recognized early on. After leaving school, he enrolled himself at the art college as a student, despite his father's opposition (the retailer's family was quite poor) . There the painter and architect Karl Kohn, who had fled from Prague, was one of his teachers.

Guayasamín finished his studies in 1941. In 1942, at the age of 23, he presented his first exhibition in a private art gallery in Quito. This triggered a small scandal, as his pictures did not correspond to the ideal of the college of fine arts. However, some of the pictures so impressed the later US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller , who was president of the Museum of Modern Art in New York at the time , that he bought them.

From the money raised for this, Guayasamín initially spent six months in the USA and from 1945 to 1947 went on a journey through many countries in South America . He also met Pablo Neruda and a friendship developed that lasted for many decades. The impressions of this trip inspired him to write his first cycle of pictures Huacayñán ( Quechua , in German: The Path of Tears ), in which he particularly addressed the misery and oppression of the indigenous population of Latin America . The pictures in this cycle were created between 1946 and 1952 and have been shown at many exhibitions abroad.

In 1947, Guayasamín also designed sets for the German-language chamber plays founded by Karl Löwenberg in Quito , in which his teacher's wife, Vera Kohn, was an actress.

Guayasamín repeatedly painted portraits of important artists and mostly left-wing politicians in Latin America, such as Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro . In addition to the friendship with Pablo Neruda, close contacts also developed with Gabriel García Márquez .

In 1971 Guayasamín became President of the House of Ecuadorian Culture , the main state cultural institution. In 1976 he founded the Fundacíon Guayasamín (German: the Guayasamín Foundation ). The aim of the foundation was and is to collect and preserve the cultural heritage of the people and especially of the indigenous people . Guayasamín was president of the foundation until his death; today it manages most of his estate and is managed by his children.

In 1978 Oswaldo Guayasamín became a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Spain and an honorary member of the Academy of Arts Carrara, Italy the following year .

In addition to his paintings, he also devoted himself to the fine arts , in particular wall paintings in public buildings. In 1982, for example, he designed a 120-meter-long wall in the new building at Barajas Airport near Madrid . This wall, coated with acrylic and powdered marble , is divided into two halves: one dedicated to Spain and the other to Hispanic America . From 1986 Oswaldo Guayasamin was a corresponding member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin. In 1988 he designed a 360 m² wall surface for a conference room for the Ecuadorian Congress . In this picture there is a representation that connects the symbol of the CIA with a Nazi steel helmet , which led to angry protests from the US ambassador present at the inauguration.

Mural by Guayasamín in the National Assembly of Ecuador .

In 1993 he also designed the mural mothers and children in the entrance room of the UNESCO headquarters in Paris .

In 1993 he took part in the opening of a museum dedicated to him in Havana , Cuba. On this occasion he also presented his third portrait of Fidel Castro.

He laid the foundation stone for the realization of a long-cherished dream in 1995: the construction of the so-called Capilla del Hombre (German Chapel of the People ) in Quito began. In the following seven years, a comprehensive museum was created in which, in addition to Guayasamín's work, an artistically designed overview of a millennium of Latin American history and cultural heritage can be seen. It has become one of the most important museums in Quito.

Guayasamín did not live to see the opening of the Capilla del Hombre . He died of a heart attack in 1999 in the United States while he was receiving treatment for an eye condition.

The “chapel” was inaugurated on November 29th and 30th, 2002 with a big ceremony. His friend Fidel Castro gave a speech. Presidents Gustavo Noboa Bejarano (Ecuador) and Hugo Chávez ( Venezuela ) as well as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel , representatives of other countries, UNESCO and numerous artists and intellectuals also took part in the celebrations, during which an eternal flame for human rights was lit. .

In a second construction phase, the Guayasamin collections currently on display in the foundation's premises a few hundred meters away are to be integrated into the Capilla del Hombre . In addition to donated and bequeathed works by Guayasamín from all creative phases, these also include paintings and drawings by other Latin American and European artists as well as Guayasmin's extensive collection of archaeological finds from the pre-Inca cultures of Ecuador (including Valdivia , Chorrera and Tolita ) as well as his collection of sacred art , especially from the colonial period.

Foundation and museums

In addition to the Capilla del Hombre and the exhibition rooms in the foundation itself, the Fundación Guayasamín also maintains two arts and crafts shops in Quito and Guayaquil as well as museums in Havana (Cuba) and Cáceres (Spain).

plant

In addition to his works of fine arts, Guayasamín's painting can be divided into three cycles, each with a specific thematic focus. These cycles are exhibited with over 150 images each in the Capilla des Hombre described above :

  1. 1946 to 1952: Huacayñán (The Path of Tears)
  2. 1960 to 1992: La Edad de la Ira (The Age of Anger)
  3. 1988 to 1999: Mientras vivo siempre te recuerdo (As long as I live, I will remember you), also La Edad de la Ternura (The Age of Tenderness)

The first cycle, created after his trip through South America, particularly shows the suffering of the indigenous population. A common motif in the second cycle is a woman who raises her hands protectively in front of her face or over her child. This cycle also includes the picture Blood Tear , which he painted in 1973 in honor of Salvador Allende , Víctor Jara and Pablo Neruda , all three of whom died during or shortly after the military coup in Chile in 1973.

In addition to the pictures that can be assigned to the three cycles, he also repeatedly painted flowers and landscapes of Ecuador, which tell of both the beauty and the threat to the country.

Web links

Commons : Oswaldo Guayasamín  - collection of images, videos and audio files

proof

  1. ↑ Vera Schiller de Kohn : Initiatic therapy. Towards the sacred core , Nordländer, Rütte, 2012, ISBN 978-3-937845-32-6 , p. 34
  2. ↑ Maria-Luise Kreuter: Where is Ecuador located? Exile in an unknown country 1938 to the end of the 1950s, Metropol, Berlin, 1975, ISBN 3-926893-27-3 , p. 255
  3. ^ Entry by Oswaldo Guayasamín
personal data
SURNAME Guayasamín, Oswaldo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ecuadorian painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Quito
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1999
Place of death Baltimore