In 1993, the Museo de Antioquia (Medellín) held an extensive and well documented exhibition that provided a historical overview of the portrait genre in the region from the colonial era to the nineties. The exhibition included drawings, prints, photographs, and paintings that—as the director of the museum writes in the exhibition catalogue—attempted to narrate “the ephemeral and the everlasting, the indeterminate nature of the real.” In seventeen sections, the authors provide a summary overview of what they consider the most important stages in the history of the portrait genre in the region, especially after the colonial era when portraits of patrons of the arts and some members of the Church hierarchy were made. The portrait genre underwent major transformations with the emergence of academic art, photography, and caricature.
A lawyer and researcher, Juan Luis Mejía Arango (b. 1951) studied cultural administration. Once the Minister of Culture, he has directed major libraries and acted as a civil servant. Since 2002, he has been the rector of the Universidad Eafit of Medellín.
Gustavo Vives Mejía (b. 1949) has worked in the cultural patrimony office of Medellín’s Secretaría de Educación. He has contributed important inventories of cultural patrimony from the Antioquia region. He is the author of the book Presencia del Arte Quiteño en Antioquia. Pintura y Escultura Siglos XVIII y XIX (Medellín, Universidad EAFIT, 1998).
