This is an important document because very few critical reviews of the work of the Colombian artist Eugenio Peña (1860–1944) are available; he is mentioned far less frequently than other painters and landscape artists of the same period. Some of his smaller landscapes, of course, could hardly be compared to the historical paintings and portraits produced by someone of the stature of Ricardo Acevedo Bernal (1867–1930), a Colombian artist who lived in Italy, and Peña was consequently not as highly regarded as were his contemporaries. This review is also important because it was written by the artist and art critic Roberto Pizano, who was one of the most highly respected critics of the time; his approval and praise of Peña’s work undoubtedly helped to ease him into the limited field of Colombian art.
The artist Eugenio Peña has received scant attention in the historiography of Colombian art. He was born in Bogotá and attended the Escuela de Bellas Artes [School of Fine Arts] with Epifanio Garay (1849–1903), who was the most representative academic artist of the late nineteenth century in Bogotá, and Luis de Llanos, a Spanish painter who lived in Bogotá, who is considered one of the pioneers of Colombian landscape painting. Peña began exhibiting his work when he was over fifty years of age. He focused mainly on landscapes, and in fact, taught a landscape painting class at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Bogotá.