The Brazilian art researcher Luciano Alves Duffrayer believed that thanks to the nationalism of the 1920s and the assimilation of the European avant-gardes led the way to overcoming the 19th century prejudices tacitly fostered by art academies. These gave way to a new assessment of an art that had been marginalized since Colonial times. However, it was fully accepted as “fine art” on a level with any other recognized art form. The writer states that when popular art goes beyond the limitations of craftwork, it is characterized by its primitive or ingenuous perspective on nature, customs and historical figures, including the magical/religious imagery that arises in communities. He points out the risk to the authenticity of the work created by these artist/artisans posed by the distortions that result from market pressures. The writer makes a brief biographical presentation about some of the artists from Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua and Honduras. He also includes short descriptions of their works and informs us of a set of votive pieces whose unknown creators, located in Mexico and Guatemala, worked from religious inspiration.

In 1979, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, the oldest Venezuelan institution dedicated to the visual arts, conducted and published a General Catalogue of its collections of Latin American painting and sculpture. This was part of the museum’s research on its own heritage, which also included art from Europe, the United States, Asia and ancient Egypt. The small Popular Art Department (with only 18 works) would be covered by the Brazilian researcher Luciano Alves Duffrayer. In his essay, he attempts to justify the presence of Haitian, Brazilian and Central American artists, among other anonymous artists in an institution primarily dedicated to “fine art.” He believes the works are there because the old nineteenth-century prejudices that came out of the academies were broken down both by the cultural nationalism of the 1920s as well as the eruption of avant-gardes in Latin America.

Though the essay is a summary, the writer manages to identify both the general and specific traits of the various artists represented. He highlights the set of votive pieces, a genre rooted in the Colonial period, and always linked to supposedly miraculous cures or interventions. The 18 works that represent the MBA’s popular art collection were acquired in 1964 from the Cuban critic, curator and collector José Gómez Sicre. The Cuban art critic had spent time in Venezuela in the 1940s promoting the acknowledgement of popular art (such as the work of Feliciano Carvallo). The visit was also related to a Pan-American modern art exhibition that presented the work of major artists from our countries, which exposure was especially important for the young adults studying art in 1948 at the Taller Libre de Arte (TLA), an institution promoted by Gómez Sicre as well. The general catalogue includes color plates, biographical articles on the artists and a bibliography, all coordinated by the Venezuelan art researcher María Elena Huizi.