Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This 1978 interview with Enrique Grau by artists Álvaro Herazo and Delfina Bernal provides insight into how Grau viewed the art world. In it, Grau discusses his aesthetic concerns and beliefs as a painter, as well as his inclinations and points of [...]

Art critic Walter Engel wrote five articles on exhibitions held in 1948, among them the solo show of artist Carlos Díaz Forero, sponsored by the Universidad Nacional of Bogotá and held at the Museo Nacional in that city in August; the exhibition of [...]

This is a summary of the conversation that took place when Fausto Panesso interviewed Enrique Grau in 1991, at the time when Grau was living in New York. Grau begins by discussing how he feels about living in Manhattan, and talks in general terms [...]

This essay by Germán Rubiano Caballero was the introductory text in the catalogue for the retrospective exhibition of work by Enrique Grau that was presented in 1983 at the Colombian-American Center in Bogotá. Rubiano Caballero begins by mentioning [...]

The artist Enrique Grau is interviewed in Cartagena in 1986. His paintings tend to reflect a “carnival atmosphere” and portray “traditional scenes,” an indication of how his native city, Cartagena de Indias, influenced his work. Grau [...]

The poet and political thinker Gonzalo Arango invites artists to participate in the “Primera Bienal de Las Cruces” [First Las Cruces Biennial]. The event was not mentioned at all in the media, although it took place in Bogotá in the 1960s, and [...]

The regular section on the visual arts in this edition (N° 57, Year 1950) of the magazine published by the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín (1937–2005) is devoted to Cecilia Porras, and includes her essay and six reproductions of [...]

This catalogue was published by the Banco de la República of Colombia in February 1963 in conjunction with the exhibition of twenty-three paintings from the bank’s Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango art collection. The exhibition was held in the [...]

This document is the catalogue to the Salón de Arte Moderno held in the exhibition hall of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in November 1957. In addition to an introduction, the catalogue contains a list with basic information (style, dimension, [...]

In this article, the well-known critic Marta Traba discusses the solo exhibition that Enrique Grau presented in Bogotá in September 1962. Traba sees a contradiction between Grau’s preferred subjects, and paradoxically, his rejection of them in [...]

In this article, art critic Marta Traba comments on the group exhibition held at “El Callejón” gallery in 1956. She asserts that the exhibition is of interest for two main reasons. First, because of the individual works and creators included and [...]

Critic Jorge Gaitán Durán presents artist Cecilia Porras in relation to recent Colombian art history and to the specificity of her work. Gaitán Durán deems Porras “the greatest revelation in Colombian painting” of the time and one of the [...]

In this article, Colombian writer Antonio Montaña provides an overview of the work and artistic career of Enrique Grau. He begins by mentioning the Salón de los XXVI held in the late forties, in which Grau, along with other artists committed to [...]

This text introduces the print portfolio, Cuba-Colombia, raíces comunes [Cuba/Colombia, Common Roots], the second work of the Corporación Prográfica [Prográfica Association] (Cali, Colombia)—after El graficario de la lucha popular en Colombia [ [...]

Art critic Marta Traba assesses the work on exhibition at the Salón de Arte Moderno [Salon of Modern Art] that took place at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango of the Banco de la República de Colombia. Traba claims that this event was the best [...]

In the book Problemas sociales en las artes plásticas [Social Problems in the Visual Arts], the critic Walter Engel reviews different periods in the universal history of art, discussing how some cultures and artists depict social issues?such as [...]

In this article, critic Germán Rubiano Caballero introduces a group of Colombian artists born in the first half of the twentieth century. To place these artists in the international context of Western art history, Rubiano Caballero associates them [...]

This article reads like an indictment of the IX Salón Anual de Artistas Colombianos held in August 1952 at the Biblioteca Nacional in Bogota. Critic Luis Vidales Jaramillo voices a resounding personal judgment of some of the works exhibited and of [...]

This article published in the “Lecturas Dominicales” or Sunday Readings section of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo (April 1962) evidences the polemic surrounding abstract and figurative art in Colombia at the time. In the introduction to the [...]

In the introduction to the exhibition Solidaridad held at the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogota, Colombia, in 1976, Argentine critic Marta Traba—who lived in Puerto Rico for many years—explains that the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende was [...]

In these two supplements, Viennese historian and critic Walter Engel describes exhibitions and artists that in his view shaped the modern art scene in Colombia from 1934 to 1957. Engel distinguishes two distinct periods: 1934 to 1951, and 1952 to [...]