Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This article is by Hans Platschek who was living in Montevideo between 1939 and 1953. The German artist makes a self- analysis on the resulting situation of postwar modernism, specifically the debated notion of “Art Nouveau or young art” both in [...]

The collector Hans Neumann discusses the Informalist movement’s connection to the emotions, transcendent universes, and what he describes as a “prophetic” nature. He sees Informalism as mankind’s logical reaction to the inexplicable nature of [...]

In this essay, the visual artist Manuel Quintana Castillo suggests that early twentieth century art represents the demise of the art that preceded it. He explains that modern art promotes communication, encourages personal choice as the basis of [...]

In this essay, Emilio Goyburu divides Western painting into periods on the basis of its “aesthetic facet.” He defines four “ages” that he envisions as a progression. In its “primitive” age—or genesis—painting acted as a “graphic [...]

This brief interview with Fernando de Szyszlo took place upon his return to Lima after having lived in Paris—which he calls “a fountain of life”—for a number of years. With enthusiasm, he describes the stimulating cultural milieu of the [...]

Several European intellectuals responded to the final question in the survey about “classical” painting and “modern” painting that was published in the Lima newspaper El Comercio. Paul Linder states that, in the course of history, there are [...]

Sebastián Salazar Bondy replies emphatically to the article in which Luis Miró Quesada extolls the virtues of architects as champions of abstract art. Salazar Bondy suggests that painting becomes unnecessary when it eliminates any reference to “ [...]

Adopting a different tone from the one he used in his previous article (“El regreso a lo funcional y a lo decorativo”), Miguel Otero Silva assures his readers he has nothing against new trends in art; but he objects to the assumption that [...]

In this article, Miguel Otero Silva discusses the similar origins of abstraction in two painters who helped to inspire two major movements: the Russian (lyrical) artist Wassily Kandinsky and the Dutch (geometric) artist Piet Mondrian. Otero Silva [...]

This is an excerpt from the text of the lecture given by the Lithuanian-born artist Lasar Segall in June 1924 at the Vila Kyrial in São Paulo, on the occasion of one of the meetings between Senator Freitas Valle and a group of modernist artists and [...]

This is a review of the exhibition of drawings and watercolors by Franz Weissmann at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. Bonfanti detects the influence of Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Pablo Picasso in these pieces, and sees in Weissmann’s work [...]

This is the Mexican critic Antonio Luna Arroyo’s biographical sketch of the German sculptor Herbert Hofmann-Isenbourg. It spans the latter’s education in philosophy and aesthetics in Berlin, his travels—including three trips around the world— [...]

The art critic Paul Westheim believed that abstract art had always existed and that it had something to do with a poetic interpretation of the world. The artist’s job was therefore to channel art toward the spiritual, sensitive, and imaginative [...]

During the 1940s, Carlos Mérida’s reflections tend toward abstract art and its protagonists. In this article, the painter states that for those who are not familiar with abstract painting, a symbolic form of interpretation is the most logical. [...]

This is a critical review of the Arte abstracto, del arte figurativo al arte abstracto [Abstract Art, from Figurative Art to Abstract Art] exhibition, which was organized by Léon Degand, the Belgian critic, and presented at the Instituto de Arte [...]

This document analyzes the exhibition “Arte Abstracto, del arte figurativo al arte abstracto” [Abstract Art: from figurative art to abstract art], organized by the Belgian critic Léon Degand and presented at the Instituto de Arte Moderno of [...]

Rodolfo Bruhl reviews Kandinsky’s work and mentions that, as the first artist to produce a nonobjective painting, Kandinsky stressed the relationship between his paintings and absolute music. Bruhl does point out, however, that the triangle of [...]

This document is an open letter in which Julio E. Payró declares his difference of opinion with Guillermo de Torre regarding the application of the term “abstract.” This letter responds to the concepts discussed by Torre in the catalog for the [...]

This document is an open letter in which Guillermo de Torre responds to Julio E. Payró, declaring his difference of opinion with respect to the application of the term “abstract.” This letter responds to the one written by Payró regarding the [...]

This article reports on the concept of abstract art outlined by Belgian painter Michel Seuphor in his book, L’art abstrait, ses origines, ses maîtres. [Abstract Art: Its Origins, Its Masters]. The volume had just been launched at the Galerie [...]

The Art Salon of the SEP [Ministry of Public Education] (1931-1934), as coordinated by the painters Francisco Díaz de León and Gabriel Fernández Ledesma—who represented both the Departamento de Bellas Artes de la Secretaría de Educación Pú [...]

In this review, Abraham Haber discusses the evolution of the work of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Piet Mondrian in order to establish, within those same parameters, its relationship to Concrete Art in Argentina and the proposals advanced by [...]