Painter Bernando Monsanto Cocking analyzes the life and work of Armando Lira. In this text, he succinctly recounts the work of the Chilean-Venezuelan artist as an exponent of Venezuelan culture beginning with his arrival in the country through the Chilean Pedagogical Mission. The author also mentions his work with the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas in Caracas to organize courses and guidelines. Monsanto also describes Lira’s significance as an artist, noting the four periods of his work. The first corresponds to his time as a student; the second to his travels in Europe (his studies about the School of Paris and visits to museums); the third to his return to Chile by which time he had mastered techniques of expression, as well as his first trip to Venezuela; and the fourth defined by his return and definitive settlement in Venezuela, during which his work is characterized by a great unity of composition.

For the first posthumous exhibition held at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas (January 1960), centered on the Chilean-Venezuelan artist and teacher Armando Lira (1903–59), Bernardo Monsanto Cocking (1896–1968) writes a succinct biography of Lira in which he describes his work as a cultural educator and artist, as well as mentioning his achievements as a professor and organizer of the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Caracas. The text by the painter and professor of Venezuelan art is balanced and accurate as the two worked together; Lira had collaborated earlier with his father, Antonio Edmundo Monsanto. The information imparted rings true due to experience rather than analysis. Using an ordered and chronological method, the author highlights Lira’s achievements and contributions, who along with other renowned painters such as Manuel Cabré, Luis Alfredo López Méndez, and Antonio Edmundo Monsanto, laid the foundations for what would become a new era in the national cultural life.

In the same manner, the author describes the four stages that distinguish Lira’s artistic process and the existing connections between these and his travels, his education and experiences, demonstrating the ties between the artist, the man, and the socially engaged human being that marked Lira as an important personality for the life of a nation.