Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Here, Roberto Guevara presents the objectives of the First Camille Pissarro Biennial (Centro Cultural Consolidado, Caracas, 1992). The event was organized to strengthen the ties between Venezuela and France as well as stimulate the development of [...]

The historian Alfredo Armas Alfonzo wrote a biography on the life and work of the Russian artist Nicolás Ferdinandov, from the time when he lived in Venezuela until his death in Curaçao. He commented on the influence Ferdinandov bestowed on young [...]

In this essay, Rafael Romero D. analyzes the significance of the self-portraits rendered by the Venezuelan artist Armando Reverón between 1910 and 1954. He states that it is Reverón who raises the genre of self-portrait to the “stature of an [...]

In this essay, as he discusses the collection of objects created by Armando Reverón, the Venezuelan writer José Balza considers different socio-political ideas about the role played by objects in society and their function as cultural building [...]

In his prologue to the catalogue for the exhibition of work by Sigfredo Chacón held at the Centro Culural Corp Group in Caracas in 2000, curator Miguel Miguel identifies Chacón as part of a “breed” of creators born in the mid-20th century who [...]

In this essay, Luis Enrique Pérez Oramas finds that the work of Armando Reverón is the source of a “formalist tale,” defined as a theme of “traces and shadows.” It is a theme that Pérez Oramas pursues through the entire period when modern [...]

In his essay, “Reverón y el arte moderno,” Luis Pérez-Oramas suggests that Reverón found his own way to modernism in his painting as a result of the exhaustion of Figuration, independently of the most noted modern artists of the twentieth [...]

In this essay, Eugenio Montejo writes about the Venezuelan painter Alirio Palacios, comparing his paintings to the work of Armando Reverón. He mentions their relentless experimenting, the fact that they were both landscape painters (of the coastal [...]

This essay by Juan Calzadilla reviews the stages of Armando Reverón’s art (blue, white, and sepia periods) proposed by Alfredo Boulton in 1955 in order to broaden and deepen understanding of Reverón’s life and work. Calzadilla posits as well an [...]

This essay on Armando Reverón by the Venezuelan painter Pascual Navarro states that the majority of writings about him have stressed his “eccentric habits” and his “Robinsonian lifestyle” in detriment to the overall analysis of his work and [...]

The 1932 article "Armando Reverón,” written by Venezuelan journalist, writer, and lawyer Julián Padrón is a short biography of Venezuelan artist Armando Reverón, and a description of his working method. Rever& [...]

Art critic Marta Traba authored the essay “Historia abierta,” which was included among the texts for the exhibition América: Mirada interior. Figari, Reverón, Santa María, in Bogotá, July 4 through August 18, 1985, published by the Banco de [...]

“Antes de que el mundo fuera” [Before the World Existed] is the essay that María Iovino wrote for the book LUIS ROLDÁN (Segmento I) published in 2007, that presented a retrospective of the artist’s work, which has always been concerned with [...]

In her essay “Reverón descansa en Juanita,” Marta Traba explores Armando Reverón’s tendency to choose women as the subject matter of his paintings. Traba pays particular attention to how Reverón uses his wife, Juanita, to express memories of [...]

This (unsigned) article is a review of the exhibition of photocopies produced by the artists María Zabala, Roberto Obregón, Diego Rísquez, Joe, Lorenzo Berman, Sigfredo Chacón, Héctor Fuenmayor, and Claudio Perna. The exhibition was held at the [...]

In “Juanita Mota, la mujer de Reverón,” the Venezuelan artist Itamar Martínez quotes what Juanita Mota, Armando Reverón’s wife (married at the time of his death) has to say about her fraternal and faithful relationship with the painter. In [...]

Art historian Shifra M. Goldman writes with great acuity and depth about the traveling exhibition, Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920–1987, which opened at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1987, and subsequently went to the Queens [...]

In this text, Damián Bayón introduces a collection of essays on Latin American art with a broad overview of what he argues are the most critical issues when considering the historical and contemporary art of the region as a whole. He begins by [...]

In this essay Eugenio Espinoza names nine artists (himself included) who, in his opinion, have distinguished themselves in the field of contemporary art as being creators of a body of work that “is neither art nor anti-art, but something in between [...]

In its third and final installment, the review written by Enrique Planchart on the Exposición del Paisaje Venezolano, the author contemplates the works of some artists that he identifies with the following phrases: “extensive work” (Marcos [...]

These “notes” were compiled by reporter Carlos Morantes based on an interview. In them, only the painter Armando Reverón speaks. Using simple and colloquial language, and speaking in the first person, the subjects he discusses include his [...]

In the first part of his extensive review of the Exposición del Paisaje Venezolano, which took place in 1942 at the Museo de Bellas Artes of Caracas, Enrique Planchart establishes a chronological framework that distinguishes the pioneers (he calls [...]

The article, written by Italian architect Gio Ponti, is a testament on the visit he made to “El Castillete,” the home and workshop built by the Venezuelan artist Armando Reverón in Macuto (on the Caribbean coastline). Ponti, who visited the [...]

In this newspaper article about Armando Reverón, Marcos Castillo, who is also a Venezuelan painter, begins by saying that there are fundamental differences between artists who follow contemporary trends and those who start a “school.” He goes on [...]

This text is a press article by critic Enrique Planchart on the group exhibition of paintings by Rafael Monasterios and Armando Reverón, which opened in December 1919; it was extended until 1920 at the Escuela de Música of the Academia de Bellas [...]

This biography of the Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón (which he is said to have written) consists of memories recorded in the third person. According to Alfredo Boulton, Reverón dictated it to “Raquel, the secretary at the Escuela” [de Artes [...]

The writer Mariano Picón Salas’ begins his essay on the artist Armando Reverón by affirming the powerful influence the artist has in Venezuela at the time; he then examines the myth of the “Illustrious Robinson,” a myth fostered by the people [...]

This is the main text from the catalogue for the retrospective on Armando Reverón, which took place at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas in 1955. In it, critic Alfredo Boulton proposes to study the artist’s work by dividing it into periods [...]

Published in the catalogue for the first retrospective of Armando Reverón, which took place in Caracas in 1951, critic Enrique Planchart discusses the characteristics of Reverón’s “complex and changeable” personality. He describes the artist [...]

Starting with a poetic image—the work of Reverón made manifest through the “miracle of Reverón”—the French diplomat Gastón Diehl discusses three fundamental aspects of the artist whom he describes in a manner that is almost supernatural [...]

The Venezuelan art historian Bélgica Rodríguez takes a look at the art produced in her country. According to her, twentieth-century Venezuelan art began with the landscape painters who were active in the early part of the century. She [...]

The Argentine critic Silvia de Ambrosini claims that there have always been “opponents” in the art field. In her opinion, these “opponents” are what revitalizes the creative atmosphere. She says that in Latin American art & [...]

In this document Antonio Berni writes about a trip to the Museo Reverón in Macuto (Venezuela), and describes the coastal environment and the objects within the house museum. He critiques the commentaries concerning both the painting and madness of [...]