In this 1947 article, the Ukrainian historian, Juan Friede, argues that it is unfair to pigeonhole young Colombians in preconceived models that ignore their “indigenous vitality.” He admits that artists, such as the Spaniards Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, and the Mexican José Clemente Orozco, have unquestionably influenced some of the participants in the Salón de losJóvenes [Young People’s Salon], but a distinction is made between influence and imitation. In Friede’s opinion, the weakest works in the show are the academic and the “ultramodern” works—among which he highlights the Surrealist submissions. He suggests that influences of that kind do not resonate with the “simple, somewhat rough but intense life” of Colombian reality. He underscores the importance of works—which he describes as “Expressionist”—that carry local painting beyond conventional parameters. Friede claims that the nature of the works transformed the event into a modern art exhibition or perhaps an independent exhibition “to the great surprise of public and organizers alike.” 

With few exceptions, Surrealism did not attract much of a following in Colombia and it found scant resonance in local art circles. On the whole, reviewers of the Salón de losJóvenes [Young People’s Salon] (Bogotá, 1947) were impressed by the vitality of the emerging artists. Most of the critics mentioned the Surrealist influence—and agreed that it would wane in the future—perhaps partly as a result of the systematic approaches on display.  The Ukrainian historian, Juan Friede (1901–1990), who lived in Colombia, was one of the pioneers of the so-called “Nueva historia” [New History] in Colombia, as well as an anthropologist and art critic. In Friede’s view, the power and authenticity of some of the artists and their works was the most interesting part of the Salón. He insists on the importance of avoiding preconceived models, whether Colombian or otherwise. The writer, professor, attorney, and former minister of the Liberal party, Daniel Arango Jaramillo (1920–2008) further discusses the matter in his essay about the Salon, “Artistas jóvenes” [Young Artists], published in El Tiempo, in which he writes, “I think it is better to imitate Picasso or Dalí than to remain stuck in the old ways.” Resistance to Surrealism seemed to be driven, to some extent, by the doubtful quality of the works associated with the trend, which prompted the Colombian poet and critic Jorge Gaitán Durán (1924–1962), one of the organizers of the event, to refer to a “subrrealist [sic] pastiche wrung from reproductions of Dalí” in his article “Panorama de la pintura joven. La pintura nueva de Colombia” [Overview of Painting by Young Artists: Colombia’s New Painting], published in El Tiempo. On the other hand, the Austrian critic Walter Engel (1908–2005), who lived in Colombia, challenged the decision to use an artistic avant-garde approach that was not based on a critical position. A few years later in the 1950 article “Un certamen agónico. El VIII Salón de Artistas” [A Dying Competition: VIII Artists’ Salon], published in the newspaper El Tiempo, Engel wrote that the event included “a great many works that were nothing but poor imitations of Surrealist ideas.”   In this article, Friede acknowledges the contributions of a group of Colombian artists all under the age of thirty who experimented with different visual languages before settling into their own distinctive styles in the following decade. As they searched for their own artistic identity, they were influenced by Picasso, Orozco, Rufino Tamayo, and to a lesser extent, Dalí and the Surrealists.