In this text, Colombian art critic Enrike Torregroza, who wrote on international art for a variety of periodicals, analyzes the Primer Salón de Arte Femenino [First Salon of Female Art] held at the Museo Nacional of Colombia in 1951. Torregroza discusses works by professional and amateur artists who engage in pictorial exercises. He argues that works by Inés Acevedo Biester and Blanca Sinisterra should not have been included in this competition because of their great mastery of technique and their talent. Torregroza discusses the works that were awarded prizes, and mentions others that although not recognized with distinction, demonstrated remarkable originality and technique. In Torregroza’s view, this Primer Salón de Arte Femenino illustrates the contribution women made to Colombian art.

Written by Enrike Torregroza for El Siglo newspaper in June 1951, this article discusses the competition of women artists called the Primer Salón de Arte Femenino. Torregroza’s not overly critical discussion of the event, which was also analyzed by commentators, such as Vienna-born critic Walter Engel (1908–2005) and Polish-born critic Casimiro Eiger (1909–1987), both of whom lived in Colombia, places it in the context of others that highlight the participation of women in the construction of a Colombian identity through art. On the other hand, Eiger and Engel argue that gender-based events of this sort are not necessary to illustrate that women have actively participated in local art. After all, by this time Colombian artists like Débora Arango (1907–2005), Lucy Tejda (1920?2011), and Beatriz Daza (1927–1968), as well as Bolivian artist Sofía Urrutia (1912–2002), were just some of the well-known women active on the local scene. The work of these artists not only illustrated new approaches to art that eschewed academicism, but also rejected a domestic ideal of woman as protector of propriety.

For Torregroza, however, exhibitions such as this one contributed to the development of Colombian art by showing women’s participation in it. Essential to this event were women for whom art was a hobby; in Torregroza’s words, “the artistic prevailed over the feminine in the temperament [of these women].” For a certain sector of Colombian society, gender-based events of this sort were vital to building a national identity; it mattered little that many of the works exhibited were merely sketches or exercises created by a negligible portion of Colombian women in the fifties. 

Related articles include Walter Engel’s “La Primera Exposición de Arte Femenino,” El Tiempo newspaper (1951), referred to in the catalogue to the Primer Salón de Arte Femenino [see doc. no. 1097738], and Casimiro Eiger’s “Salón Femenino,” published in Crónicas de Arte Colombiano, (Bogotá: Editorial Banco de la República, 1995) [see doc. no. 1091861].