In this essay, Aracy Amaral discusses the career of the historian and art critic Damián Carlos Bayón, stressing the important role that he and Marta Traba played throughout the Americas by fostering a deeper understanding of Latin American art. Amaral describes Bayón’s early activities—as head of the editorial department at Ver y Estimar, the magazine that was initially managed by Jorge Romero Brest—as well as his international journalism experience in Paris, Barcelona, and New York in the 1950s. She lists his major works and mentions the impact achieved by the book he produced for UNESCO: América Latina en sus artes (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1980). The essay highlights the importance of the exhibition in Austin, Texas—where Bayón was a professor—that led to the Art and Literature Symposium in 1975 that was sponsored by the Mexican magazine Plural. Amaral implies that Bayón was suspicious of the contemporary avant-garde, and relatively ignorant about Brazilian art.

Aracy A. Amaral (b. 1930) is a historian and art critic who has taken a very keen interest in Latin American art since 1975. She took part in the Austin Symposium in Texas and subsequently established relationships with Latin American critics such as Damián C. Bayón (1915–95) from Argentina—the organizer of the event, Peruvian Juan Acha (1916–95), who lived in Mexico, and Marta Traba (1923–83), who was from Argentina, but who had settled in Colombia.

Historian, journalist, art critic, and professor, Damián Carlos Bayón originally studied architecture in his native Argentina. In 1944, he became a student of Jorge Romero Brest’s, with whom he created the magazine Ver y Estimar (during its first period, 1948–55). Then he went to Europe, and in Paris he worked with the theoretician Pierre Francastel. The political instability in Argentina prompted him to become a French citizen, although he kept his Argentinean citizenship as well. He joined UNESCO, which led to a number of jobs in the field of Latin American art and architecture. He was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and in 1981, was named as the Tinker Professor at Stanford University in California.

Amaral’s article is impressive because it includes interesting details about Bayón’s career as well as insights into relationships between scholars and artists in Latin America since the 1960s.

This article undoubtedly reflects the exchange of thoughts and ideas and artistic discussions between Latin American countries in the 1960s, during Bayón’s international career. On this matter, see Bayón’s own perspective in Arte moderno en América Latina (Madrid: Taurus Ediciones, 1984); the preface to this book is available in [doc. no. 1061874].