Oswaldo Guayasamín: Painter of the Human

On July 6, 1919, Osvaldo Guayasamín was born in Quito, Ecuador, the first of ten children. His father was of indigenous origin and his mother was of mixed race. The socioeconomic conditions in which he lived would later become a recurring theme in his work.

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From an early age he had a talent for painting. At the age of 8 he painted portraits of his classmates and teachers at school. He was also in charge of changing daily the promotional posters of the store where his mother offered sweets, handicrafts and household utensils.

In 1932 he entered the School of Fine Arts in Quito, against the will of his father, who was opposed to his son taking the path of art. After several interruptions due to the political situation of the country, he graduated in 1942 and that same year he had his first exhibition in a private gallery in the city of Quito. Critics were furious with the painter's creations, ridiculing his works as disrespectful to the official exhibition of the School of Fine Arts.

But everything was in place for the dissident painter to succeed with his art. He was fortunate that the young Nelson Rockefeller - who would later become Vice President of the United States - was passing through the Ecuadorian capital and was impressed by the artist's paintings. Nelson Rockefeller was a scholar of pre-Columbian art, a direct descendant of one of the most important families in the United States.

He immediately arranged an invitation from the State Department. Guayasamín stayed in the United States for six months. This allowed the artist to come into contact with universal art; he visited the most important museums, art academies and universities, perfected his style and was invited to exhibit his works, which allowed him to earn money. . With that money he would undertake a trip to Mexico, where he would come into contact with the muralist avant-garde, very important at that time José Clemente Orozco. The important muralist with whom Guayasamín became friends invited him to collaborate in the creation of a fresco mural. Later, in 1944, he undertook a long journey through all the countries of South America, whose experiences he ended up capturing in paintings, murals and sculptures.

About this experience the painter would say "From village to village, from city to city we witnessed the most immense misery: villages of black mud, in black earth, with children muddy with black mud; men and women with faces of skin burned by the cold, where tears were frozen for centuries, until we did not know if they were salt or stone."

Oswaldo Guayasamín is among the great Latin American painters of the 20th century, along with the Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, the Brazilian Cándido Portinari and the Argentine Antonio Berni. He is considered one of the most outstanding in the genre of indigenous expressionism.

In the mid-nineties, in his hometown of Quito, to which he always returned, he undertook the creation of one of his most significant works. It is a tribute to humanity that he called The Chapel of Man. Paintings, murals and sculptures, carefully arranged in an impressive architecture, capture the cry of humanity since pre-Columbian times, the pain of the black slaves, the suffering and struggle of women and peoples, as well as their yearnings and the events that marked their respective histories.  He could not see his work finished, during the cold month of March 1999, he died in the U.S. city of Baltimore, where he was visiting. It was a 10 day.