Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this article, the art critic Walter Engel, an Austrian based in Colombia, wrote an overview of how various contemporary artists represent the human figure. To Engel, regarding this genre, in concept “no period or country may claim [it] for [...]

In this article, poet and art critic Jorge Gaitán Durán takes stock of the activities that took place on the Colombian art scene in 1946. He begins with a reflection on the overall state of the visual arts in the country. He asserts that 1946 [...]

Art critic Walter Engel wrote five articles on exhibitions held in 1948, among them the solo show of artist Carlos Díaz Forero, sponsored by the Universidad Nacional of Bogotá and held at the Museo Nacional in that city in August; the exhibition of [...]

“Los comienzos de la experimentación” is the third chapter of the research paper La experimentación en el arte colombiano del siglo XX, written in 1991 by the art historians María Teresa Guerrero and Ivonne Pini. This fragment presents the [...]

This catalogue was published by the Banco de la República of Colombia in February 1963 in conjunction with the exhibition of twenty-three paintings from the bank’s Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango art collection. The exhibition was held in the [...]

This document is the catalogue to the Salón de Arte Moderno held in the exhibition hall of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in November 1957. In addition to an introduction, the catalogue contains a list with basic information (style, dimension, [...]

In this article, Walter Engel, an Austrian critic who lived in Colombia, reviews the group exhibition held on the occasion of the opening of “El Caballito” gallery in Bogotá in 1956. Engel asserts that the opening of the gallery represents a [...]

Published in the catalogue to the exhibition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Primer Salón de Arte Moderno, this text by Sylvia Juliana Suárez presents the idea, process and results of a curatorial and editorial project formulated by [...]

Critic Jorge Gaitán Durán presents artist Cecilia Porras in relation to recent Colombian art history and to the specificity of her work. Gaitán Durán deems Porras “the greatest revelation in Colombian painting” of the time and one of the [...]

This article by the art critic Miguel González describes in great detail Hernando Tejada’s series of wooden sculptures of women. Tejada became interested in working with wood in 1963 when, at Marta Traba’s invitation, he was exploring the [...]

“Ketty” is the name (or pseudonym) of the journalist who wrote this report about the mural that Hernando Tejada was at the time painting at the Ferrocarril del Pacífico railway station in Cali. Before divulging the particular events in the [...]

This is a first-person narrative in which Lucy Tejada discusses recollections and biographical details that she thinks had an impact on her work. She takes up the story in her childhood and mentions her memories of cities and spaces where she lived. [...]

This catalogue in brochure form describes the show of wooden sculpture by Hernando Tejada that opened on May 25, 1965, at the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá (MAM). The document consists of a black and white photograph of the Colombian artist, an [...]

This article by Colombian poet and journalist Rogelio Echavarría sparked a controversy on Colombian painting of the time and its role in a broader Latin American art.  The author begins by contextualizing the problem.  According to Echavarría, a [...]

In this article written in 1957, Teresa Tejada discusses the murals by artists Alejandro Obregón and Hernando Tejada recently finished or underway at public institutions and private homes. Specifically, the text provides a formal analysis of the [...]

[This document includes] a four-page brochure whose first page reads: “Universidad Nacional de Colombia/ Museo Nacional/ Exposición de pintura/ contemporánea/ octubre 1948.” The other three pages contain the names of the artists participating [...]

In this 1947 article, the Ukrainian historian, Juan Friede, argues that it is unfair to pigeonhole young Colombians in preconceived models that ignore their “indigenous vitality.” He admits that artists, such as the Spaniards Pablo Picasso and [...]

This document is the postcard invitation to the inauguration of the Corporación Ciudad Solar [Solar City Association], an independent cultural space in Cali, Colombia, established by Hernando Guerrero, Francisco “Pakiko” Ordóñez, and Miguel [...]