This article by artist and critic Leonel Estrada discusses the most recent exhibition of works by Colombian artist Saturnino Ramírez held at Galería Partes in Medellín in September 1977. Ramírez presented drawings, oil paintings, and pastels that capture the atmosphere of billiard halls, bars, and cafes. In Estrada’s view, Ramírez’s skill as a draftsman and approach to his theme yield a strain of “new realism.” For instance, this work challenges the viewer to value everyday themes through the artist’s framing of a billiard player from many points of view. It is on the basis of Ramírez’s own words that Estrada asserts that the artist’s works are grounded in reality. Estrada places emphasis on the treatment of light and shadow in the works depicting billiard halls. He admits, however, that Ramírez’s approach is “not original” insofar as Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh’s work Night Café (1888) expresses “everything there was to be said about that theme.” In closing, Estrada remarks that Ramírez, along with a number of other “exported brains,” has lived in Paris for four years.

In this article entitled “Diez billaristas en simultánea,” one artist—Leonel Estrada (b. 1920)—presents the work of another­—Saturnino Ramírez (1946–2002). Estrada defines Ramírez’s painting as “new realism,” arguing that it is based on “a seemingly mundane theme that grows in the hands of the artist.” Ramírez represents everyday situations in poor urban neighborhoods, a theme that was also explored in Colombia by draftsman and printmaker Oscar Jaramillo (b. 1947). 

At the time the exhibition was held, Saturnino had lived in Paris for four years. This exhibition at Galería Partes in Medellín was significant insofar as it featured works with themes that would concern the artist in subsequent decades. The cafes and billiard halls depicted in paintings, drawings, and prints make reference to scenes typical of the social universe of the urban working class.  

Artist, art critic, and cultural manager, Leonel Estrada is widely esteemed in the Antioquia region for his efforts to further art over the course of the second half of the twentieth century. Specifically, he founded the Bienal Iberoamericana de Pintura de Coltejer (exhibitions were held in 1968, 1970, 1972, and 1981) that brought together and fostered debate between the latest tendencies in art. At the third exhibition (1972), Ramírez was awarded a grant from the Instituto Colombiano de Cultura (Colcultura) to further his studies abroad. After receiving a degree in art education from the Universidad Nacional of Colombia (Bogotá campus), he taught drawing at that same university in the School of Architecture (Medellín campus). In 1974, he moved to Paris. The year that the exhibition discussed here was held, Ramírez was selected by art critic Marta Traba (1923–1883) to participate in the show Novísimos colombianos (1977) at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo of Caracas.