Oswaldo Guayasamín

(Quito, 1919 - Baltimore, Maryland, 1999)

Mother and Child

ca. 1986

oil on canvas

120 x 80.2 cm

Inv. no. 723

BBVA Collection Spain



The Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamín pioneered the renewal of Latin American art throughout the twentieth century. Influenced by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991), he was the creator of a unique visual language.

His career can be divided into three phases or series readily differentiated by their subject matter. The first one is Huacayñan (Trail of Tears), 1946-1952, where he addresses the pressure indigenous people are subjected to in some Latin American cities. In the 1960s he undertook The Age of Rage, one of his most harrowing series. Focused on twentieth-century wars and violence, it entailed the aesthetic consolidation of his style. Towards the end of his life his subject matters became more attenuated and, from the 1980s onwards he produced While I Live I Remember You, also known as The Age of Tenderness. This painting, dedicated to his mother and to all the mothers in the world, belongs to that body of work. In it, Guayasamín leaves behind the darkness of previous periods to delve into a more expressive palette, dominated by blue, ochre and orange tones.

The painting in the BBVA Collection is a superb example of Guayasamín’s mature period, in which the human being is the main focus. The composition centred on the two inscrutable characters, with hard, sharply angular features, as if made of papier mâché, and with pained, vacuous expressions, as if lost in time. What prevails here is the prominent heads with indigenous features, resting on scrawny shoulders. Both figures have an empty eye, a recourse probably used to emphasise the message of denunciation the artist conveyed in all his works. That said, notwithstanding the grief of the two portrayed characters, reminiscent of The Age of Rage, the artist has painted the background in a much livelier colour, as if to offer some hope in the midst of brutality.