In a letter dated April 23, 1972, the Colombian painter Darío Jiménez Villegas tells his friend Alberto Suárez Casas, in eloquent terms that he is quite satisfied with the latter’s portrait which he had recently painted. Jiménez describes it as a “good portrait” that has captured Suárez’s character, and calls him a man with a “rich, intense inner life.” He assures his friend that, in this case he did not resort to copying a photograph, a medium which he considers to have “a great deal of character.” Jiménez refers to himself as an artist who fluctuates between academic painting and Expressionism and predicts that ultimately the latter style will prevail. He admits to his friend that his works “do not distort their message.” According to the letter, Jiménez has not yet finished the painting and tells Suárez that in the next few days he will discover the underlying secret of the work “as a manifestation of life and an art object.” 

This letter by the painter Darío Jiménez Villegas (1919-1980) is an eloquent statement by a prolific artist whose writings reveal his worldview and his love for Ibagué, his homeland in the department of Tolima. A number of short texts by Jiménez were published in the catalogue of the retrospective Darío Jiménez: Exposición antológica 1938-1980 [Darío Jiménez: Retrospective Exhibition 1938-1980] that was organized by Carolina Ponce de León at the Luis Ángel Arango Library in Bogotá in 1987. This letter is among those documents, which reveal his feelings for and interest in popular culture; they also reveal his knowledge of literature and the history of universal art. In lyrical prose, Jiménez praises the women of Ibagué and the colors he uses in his painting. He speaks out in support of portrait painting because, in his opinion, the portrait painter must penetrate the mystery of human features.   

Jiménez Villegas lived in the city of Ibagué in “modest retirement” from the art world, and painted with a flair that was compatible with his Expressionist style. He took classes at the Escuela de Bellas Artes [School of Fine Arts] (now the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia [National University of Colombia’s School of Visual Arts]) that were taught by instructors of the caliber of Luis Alberto Acuña (1904–1984) and Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo (1910–1970). Jiménez lived in Mexico City from 1944 to 1948, where he exhibited with the painter Jorge Elías Triana (1921-1999) under the auspices of Gómez Jaramillo (see “Dos pintores colombianos” [Two Colombian Painters], doc. # 1098556). On the occasion of that exhibition Jiménez received encouragement from the Mexican painter José Clemente Orozco (1883–1949), and the Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974) bought one of his paintings. As time passed and his work received scant attention, Jiménez stated that: “I have always thought of myself as a distant descendant of Botticelli’s, accursed in terms of any acknowledgment of my talent.” The acknowledgment that he hoped to receive during his lifetime finally arrived in the form of the posthumous tribute accorded him at the 1987 exhibition. His friend Alberto Suárez Casas—a collector of prestigious art in Ibagué—appreciated his work and understood that his alcoholism and financial troubles were the result of his bohemian lifestyle. In the 1970s Suárez Casas also began collecting Jiménez’s personal writings for safekeeping and, in 1979 organized a retrospective exhibition of his friend’s work at the Galería Belarca just a few months before the painter’s death.