In this critical essay, historian Juan Carlos Palenzuela discusses what he considers the meteoric rise of the career of Venezuelan artist Héctor Poleo, mentioning specifically the awards he won at a young age, his frequent travels, and his successful exhibitions. Palenzuela also remarks on the favorable critical response to Poleo’s work and the support he received from much of the Venezuelan media. After addressing the phase of the artist’s work inspired by Mexican muralism and his Surrealist period, Palenzuela concludes that Poleo’s figurative work was marked by concerns of both a sociological and a humanistic nature.

This essay by historian and critic Juan Carlos Palenzuela (1954–2007) focuses on two of the most important periods in the pictorial production of Héctor Poleo (1918–1989): his social realist phase and his Surrealist phase. The author suggests that Poleo enjoyed widespread support from the governments in power in the second half of the forties and early fifties and from gallerists who wagered on the relevance of his themes. Similarly, the critics of the day and some of the media, specifically the magazine Élite and the newspaper El Nacional, followed his work closely. Indeed, through the sixties, the media dedicated a good deal of space to Poleo’s painting in coverage that focused on his success as well as his impressive spirit of hard work. In this sense, Poleo is one of the artists that has generated more critical writing in Venezuela . Palenzuela questions the value of Poleo’s painting after the fifties, when his work began a gradual decline. Palenzuela bases his assessment of Poleo’s production on emblematic work that he describes in order to convey what he considers the backbone of Poleo’s artistic production: narrative figuration with a social and contrarian bent that encompasses even Poleo’s Surrealist production.

For other texts on Poleo’s work, see Alberto Junyent’s reviews, “Aromas de la gracia” (ICAA digital archive doc. no. 1153851) and “Obras recientes de Héctor Poleo” (doc. no. 1153835); Juan Liscano’s article, “Pedro León Castro y Héctor Poleo” (doc. no. 850175); Simón Noriega, “Fuentes concretas del surrealismo de Poleo” (doc. no. 1153819) and “Poleo y la cultura figurativa de los años cuarenta” (doc. no. 1153776) in his book, La Pintura de Héctor Poleo; Denys Chevalier’s essay,/ “Poleo: la opción simbolista” (doc. no. 1162167); Alfredo Boulton, “Introducción” (doc. no. 1153883) and “El tema de la figura humana en la obra de Héctor Poleo” (doc. no. 1153964); Bégica Rodriguez, “Héctor Poleo, inventor y fabulador de formas” (doc. no. 1153899), the introduction to the catalogue of the show, Poleo desconocido (1997); Sergio Antillano’s essay, “Imagen sucesiva de Héctor Poleo” (doc. no. 1172085); and Carlos Silva’s essay, “Arte y estilo de Héctor Poleo” (doc. no. 1172190) in his book, Poleo: Categorías del espíritu.