Well-known avant-garde author Ricardo Peña recounts the cosmopolitan education of Ricardo Grau, whom he describes as a “concertmaster of international figures.” In his paintings, he notes a tonal atmosphere that is austere and excessive. He identifies two perspectives within his work: one of synthesis in his portraits and nudes, and one of analysis in his landscapes; one is retentive while the other is expansive. Thus, his work alternates between the real, the psychological, and the subjective. In his opinion, the contours within his nudes dematerialize and so imbue the work with a moving piety. Peña perceives that “spiritual splendor” that is considered fundamental and intrinsic to all works of art.

This is the commentary by poet Ricardo Peña on Ricardo Grau’s individual show at the Instituto de Música Bach de Lima (Peru).

The author of this article, Ricardo Peña, was one of the most distinguished poets of the Peruvian avant-garde during the 1930s, which also included his brother Enrique, Martín Adán, Emilio A. Westphalen, César Moro and Carlos Oquendo de Amat. He also painted, exhibiting in Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, New York and Viña del Mar. His affiliation with the avant-garde led him to approach form in a manner akin to Sabogal, as opposed to the latter’s focus on indigenous themes.

Painter Ricardo Grau returned to Lima at the beginning of 1937. He was born in 1907 in Bordeaux, France, and was educated in Europe, both at the École Royale de Beaux-Arts (Brussels, Belgium) and the École Supérieure de Beaux-Arts located in Paris, in addition to participating in the workshops of André Favory, André Lhote and Fernand Léger, among others. His work was characterized as conservative with a solid technical base within the rappel à l’ordre [return to order] movement of post-war France. On the Lima arts scene, this type of formalist and cosmopolitan painting was seen as an antidote to the art inspired by indigenous themes that was promoted by José Sabogal and the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes).Once settled in the Peruvian capital, he stood out at the I Salón de Independientes: a show that for the first time offered a public space to those opposed to the indigenous art promoted by Sabogal. The show featured a heterogeneous group of artists who sought to create an alternative to the hegemony of the ENBA.Not long after, Grau directly expressed his criticisms of indigenous art through the Exposición Interamericana de Pintura Chilena, that at the beginning of June (1937) presented in Lima a group of works dominated by the guidelines of the École de Paris. In his first individual show (which opened the following month), Grau confirmed his leadership in the movement to renew the local arts scene. Although Carlos Raygada (1898–1953)—the only intellectual who focused on art criticism of the local scene—produced a formalist reading of the show, radical critics of indigenous art such as Luis Fernández Prada (1917–73) viewed the show as bringing Peru up to date with international arts developments. Grau’s commitment to “pure painting” constituted a serious critique of the thematic restrictions and crude technique of the “Peruvian School” of painting upheld by the artists who embraced indigenous art. An unknown commentator using the initials C. M. (César Moro?) identified Grau as the principal representative of art in his country, stating that his austere and formalist understanding of painting was authentically modern, as opposed to the external and decorative focus of the indigenist works. The initials could also stand for painter Carlos More (1904–44), who had years earlier raised concerns about Sabogal’s group.