Guayasamín, Oswaldo

20th Century. Ecuadorian

Oswaldo Guayasamín was a major figure in Latin American art. His interest in drawing and painting encouraged him to enrol at the School of Fine Arts of Quito, where he completed his training in 1941. One year later, he had his first solo exhibition in his hometown in which the artist presented a body of work consisting of paintings defined by a significant social denunciation, heralding the subjects and concerns of his future work.

He travelled to the USA in 1942, spending six months there. During his time there he visited museums and collections and studied the works of European artists, paying special attention to El Greco (1541-1614) and Goya (1746-1828). After that experience Guayasamín settled in Mexico, where he became acquainted with the great muralists and collaborated with José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949). This was the beginning of a period focused on figurative realism and closely related with the

Mexican School

, whose teachings would prove key for the artist and leave a deep imprint on his painting. It was around this time when he began to explore indigenous subject matters in a highly effusive language created using planes of colour and sketchy geometric forms, drawn from several different avant-garde movements.

During the forties, he travelled tirelessly throughout Latin America, visiting Chile, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay. The social and political conditions of those countries were the seed for one of his most complex and celebrated series: Huacayñan (Trail of Tears). Created between 1946 and 1952, this body of work consists of over one hundred paintings reflecting the inequality suffered by the inhabitants of those countries.

In 1955 Guayasamín visited Europe for the first time. There, he presented part of the series Huacayñan at the Third Hispano-American Biennial held in Barcelona. Since then he began to show his works throughout Spain, with a particular mention for the exhibition organised in 1971 by the Contemporary Art Museum in Madrid, where he displayed The Age of Rage, the second great period of his career. The paintings in this series depict the pain suffered by humankind, subjected to the most atrocious violence, and sought to trigger in the beholder a reflection on the vulnerability and oppression experienced by part of the society of our time. Internationally acclaimed, Guayasamín’s work is defined by the powerful intensity of his characters, whose devastated faces raise awareness about the atrocities suffered by the most oppressed social groups.

The commitment Guayasamín showed in his work was recognised with a number of honorary doctorates and countless distinctions in nearly every Latin American country. In Europe, the artist was appointed member of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Madrid (1978), an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Italy (1979) and Chevalier of the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur of France (1984).