Luis Oyarzún writes about the body of work that the painter Carlos Pedraza produced over the course of his three-decade career. According to Oyarzún, Pedraza attained a measure of skill in the areas he explored and, like Pablo Burchard, created a “poetry of colors.” His painting was known for creating an atmosphere and great sensual depth; in other words, he “created tactile values” and even managed to evoke non-pictorial elements such as perfumes or sound. Pedraza staged scenes of sensitive beauty in which the objects he represented sought to achieve the visuality of things. Oyarzún discusses painting and maintains that Pedraza’s work is “painting-painting, painting just because,” that should nonetheless be seen as a “moment of knowledge.”

The writer and intellectual Luis Oyarzún (1920–1972) reviewed Carlos Pedraza’s painting in the Anales de la Universidad de Chile (1966). He taught aesthetics and art history at the Universidad de Chile and at the Universidad Austral de Chile; he also wrote criticism for the newspaper La Nación and the magazine Pro Arte. His extensive writings shed light on the art produced from the 1950s to the early 1970s. [The following essays about the author can be seen in the ICAA Digital Archive: “Aspectos claves del pensamiento estético de Luis Oyarzún” (doc. no. 775965) by Omar Cofré; and both “La experiencia estética como expresión y creación de formas” (doc. no. 770390) and “Notas sobre lo americano” (doc. no. 779076) by Oyarzún.] 

Carlos Pedraza enrolled at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in 1936; prior to that he had studied painting under Eduardo Videla while at the Instituto Barros Arana in Santiago. In 1957 he was the director of the Painting department at the Escuela de Bellas Artes, where he replaced the painter Pablo Burchard (1875–1964). He also held several positions at the Facultad de Bellas Artes: secretary (1955–58), then director (1960–63), and then dean (1963–66). In 1979, during the military dictatorship (1973–90), he received the Premio Nacional de Arte, with a mention in Painting, from the Chilean government. 

According to the art historian Antonio Romera (1908–1975), Pedraza was a member of the Generación del ‘40, a generation that was interested in Post-Impressionism and heir to the Grupo Montparnasse, which challenged the traditional boundaries of the fine arts. This group, according to Romera, started La Escuela de Santiago, which was devoted to landscape painting. Pedraza was one of the school’s most outstanding students. [See “Claves y constantes definidoras” (doc. no. 754547) in the ICAA Digital Archive.] 

This generation made its debut at the 1941 Salón. Among the things they had in common was a figurative approach to landscapes, interiors, and costumbrista scenes of local customs. They shared a fondness for color and a focus on materiality in their paintings. The list of members included Ana Cortés (1895–1998), Inés Puyo (1906–1996), Ximena Cristi (b. 1920), Manuel Gómez Hassan (1908–1999), Sergio Montecino (1916–1997), Hardy Wistuba (1925–2010), Augusto Barcia (1926–2001), Fernando Morales Jordán (1920–2003), Francisco Otta (1908–1999), Arturo Pacheco Altamirano (1905–1978), Oscar Tole Peralta (1920–2002), Maruja Pinedo (1907¬–1995), Eduardo Ossandón (1929–2013), Aída Poblete (1914–2000), Israel Roa (1909–2002), Reinaldo Villaseñor (1925–1994), and Sergio Montecino (1916–1997). The art historian Guillermo Machuca (1961–2020) viewed these painters as representatives of “creole Expressionism.” [On this subject, see “La historia y sus carencias. Introducción” (doc. no. 756093) by Guillermo Machuca.]