Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this article signed “J. Nahuaca”—the anagram he used as an alias—Peruvian critic Juan Acha reflects on whether or not there is a painting tradition in Peru. He discusses the current state of painting on the occasion of the Premio [...]

Painter Aquiles Ralli rejects the comments made by Fernando de Szyszlo that became a national scandal: “there are no painters in Peru.” He juxtaposes the work of the “good artists,” those who diligently “work in silence and never advertise [...]

The first part of the interview covers the start of his career and his training in Europe. After living in Buenos Aires (where he returned to his art studies), he returned to Peru in 1919. Sabogal states that “the Cuzco area cast a powerful spell [...]

In this interview, Fernando de Szyszlo states that the only painting tradition that exists is the European tradition, under the standards that emanated from Paris in the late 19th century, to which all other schools have been assimilated. Even “ [...]

This text is Samuel Pérez Barreto’s response to the article by the Agrupación Espacio published as part of the debate that took shape around the polemic statements by Fernando de Szyszlo (“there are no painters in Peru”) published in La [...]

The synopsis and the annotations in English are coming soon. However, our bilingual readers can click on “Español” to access this information in Spanish [...]

This is a letter from the critic Mário de Andrade to the writer Prudente de Moraes Neto. Adopting a brotherly tone, de Andrade criticizes the Surrealist nature of Moraes Neto’s article in the modernist magazine VERDE, published in Cataguazes (in [...]

This [document] by Mário de Andrade is a reply, dated May 20, 1928, to the letter in which Augusto Meyer discussed the former’s controversial activity, conscience, and references to national subject matter. De Andrade outlines his intellectual [...]

This letter by Mariano Ibérico was written at the request of painter Antonino Espinosa Saldaña. More specifically, Ibérico was asked to share his opinion on the polemic surrounding the course on Incan art given at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas [...]

This document is a reply by Mário de Andrade to the poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, dated November 22, 1924. In it, de Andrade voices his opposition to what he considers to be the false binomial that distinguishes national from universal criteria, [...]

Critic Mário Pedrosa analyzes the work of Ruben Valentim and defines his “authentic Brazilian painting.” His work is removed from the well-known, anecdotal, and picturesque regionalism that abounds in the art of the state of Bahia, where [...]

In his essay “A hora presente,” Ascânio Lopes Quatorzevoltas blames the belligerence in the world for the habit of viewing foreigners as enemies, and for the rampant nationalist anger in Europe and the United States. In his opinion those [...]

An architectural project by Henrique Mindlin for an American bank in Recife, Brazil, presents Gilberto Freyre with an opportunity to analyze the idea of “nationalism.” Mindlin was an important theorist on Brazilian architectural modernism, and [...]

Painter Antonino Espinosa opens this letter questioning the pertinence of the “Arte incaico” [Incan Art] course at the ENBA—to be offered by writer Augusto Aguirre, author of the novel El pueblo del sol [The People of the Sun]—arguing that [...]

The author, Augusto Aguirre Morales, (who was selected by the ENBA to teach the controversial course) defends the existence of “Incan art,” using the examples conserved in museums and the testimonials of historians. He asserts that it was the [...]

In this article, Mario Briceño Iragorry, a historian and journalist from Caracas, reflects on the traditional value placed on religious bells, over foreign novelties, such as abstract painting. He juxtaposes his “primitive and simple tastes” for [...]

The synopsis in English are coming soon [...]

This document analyzes the national repercussions that the Sindicato de Obreros Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores [SOTPE, Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors] had on an art scene that was then dominated by individualism. Siqueiros [...]

Amalia Mesa-Bains’s essay proposes a historical lineage of heart imagery and the concept of “lo del corazón” [that which comes from the heart] that begins in the Mexico’s Aztec ritual of human sacrifice and culminates in public and popular [...]

In this article the writer and journalist José Eulogio Garrido discusses the indigenist painting of José Sabogal. Garrido describes the painter as “a man with a voice and vision of his own who expresses that voice and vision in visible ways that [...]

Starting with this issue, working alongside Guilherme de Almeida, Homero Prates assumed the role of literary editor of the journal Panoplia. In his text, Prates points out the nationalist feelings circulating at the time in Brazil. This outlook set a [...]

The text, “Arte Suramericano” [South American Art], by Jean Emar, is one of his “Notas de arte” [Art Notes] written in the daily newspaper, La Nación between 1923 and 1925. In this text, Emar, in his capacity as an art critic, analyzed the [...]

This is the first of two articles by Sebastián Salazar Bondy, published under the pseudonym “Juan Eye,” on the Mexican art exhibition organized in Lima by La Crónica newspaper. The author believes the show is exceptional for its positive [...]

López Merino begins his article by remarking on the success of Sabogal’s exhibition in Buenos Aires, “where the most discerning critics acknowledged the respect he enjoys in Latin America.” The writer describes the exhibition of prints as a [...]

Mário de Andrade addresses this open letter to the writer Alberto de Oliveira, and in principle, defends the literature produced by Brazilian Romanticism, a group associated with a primitive approach to art combined with social, religious, sexual, [...]

In this interview, Colombian writer and critic Luis Vidales provides an overview of European cultural thought of the late 1920s. First, he discusses the debate between nationalism and internationalism in the sphere of culture in order to flesh out [...]

In this paean to modern urban life, written by the well-known modernist poet Menotti del Picchia, the highways, the media, and the industrial sector all work together in perfect harmony to consolidate “new values.” He bemoans “our obsolete [...]

This text is the first of three parts of the essay “Cómo la pintura ha buscado al Perú” written by Sebastián Salazar Bondy. The text was not intended to be “an aesthetic theory,” but rather “a sociological interrogation” geared towards [...]

In this text, Sebastián Salazar Bondy argues that the post-romantic generation, which was held in high regard at the time, is not essential to Peruvian art history because it is anachronistic; such art has neglected its “true” national and [...]

This text is the second of three parts of the essay “Cómo la pintura ha buscado al Perú” written by Sebastián Salazar Bondy. The text was not intended to be “an aesthetic theory,” but rather “a sociological interrogation” geared [...]

Article written by Ernesto More, signed with the pseudonym Jerome, in which he criticizes the direction adopted by the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (ENBA), based in Lima, Peru. The author affirms that ENBA was created by an oligarchic government [...]

Franklin Urteaga conducted this lengthy interview with Julia Codesido on the occasion of her recent exhibitions overseas. Referring to the first of these, at the recently inaugurated Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico City, 1935), Urteaga notes the [...]

In this article signed “J. Nahuaca”—the anagram he used as an alias—critic Juan Acha addresses the relationship between nationalism and painting in Peru. He points out “the pressure” that nationalist concerns, which he considers “ [...]

Juan Acha discusses the exhibition of Fernando de Szyszlo’s series of paintings inspired by the indigenous poem “Apu Inca Atawallpaman,” an event that was organized by the Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo (IAC) in Lima. Acha finds the [...]

Ismael Xavier refers to Glauber Rocha’s essay “Uma Estética da Fome” [An Aesthetic of Hunger] in which he sees a connection to Frantz Fanon’s theory concerning an intellectual response to the consequences of colonialism. In so doing, Xavier [...]

Cildo Meireles asserts that he doesn’t defend any profession or nationality, and that he instead speaks about a region named Cruzeiro do Sul  [the Southern Cross], which was divided by an imaginary line known as the Tordesillas line. He comments [...]

Looking through the prism of her philosophical education, Otília Arantes explores the different approaches taken as a result of the Brazilian political situation⸺following the military coup d’etat that installed an iron-fisted [...]

Óscar Fritz compares José Sabogal’s influence on the Peruvian visual arts to Martin Luther’s impact during the Reformation: a process that “sought to return to an earlier simplicity, to embrace a form of evangelical speech that mimicked the [...]

In this text, art critic Carlos Raygada asserts that, though Mario Urteaga has never before shown his painting in the capital, his work is not that of a beginner. Raygada describes Urteaga as a self-taught artist who, because he began painting in the [...]

Referring to the visual art he saw in Mexico, José Sabogal says that contemporary Mexican painting is already “the most serious American movement in art. It represents something truly national, truly American.” Its exponents (he mentions José [...]

In his interview with Carlos Raygada, Héctor Velarde explains that his work “has consisted of coordinating and realizing the original concept” for the Basílica de Santa Rosa de Lima, while abstaining as much as possible from any alteration of [...]

This text contains the polemic statements that Fernando de Szyszlo made on the occasion of his exhibition of abstract paintings held at the Asociación de Arquitectos del Perú in Lima in May 1951. He starts off by provocatively asserting that “ [...]

Carmen Saco, the Peruvian sculptress and essayist, believes that the roots of Julia Codesido’s painting can be found in “blocks of stone that have been overwhelmed and penetrated by life and pain.” She believes that Codesido’s art expresses [...]

Medellín was still a very small town when its first exhibition of paintings opened to the public on July 20, 1892. The event was organized by the artist and critic Samuel Velásquez and the painter and photographer Emiliano Mejía, who had trained [...]

In 1937, Ricardo Peña wrote about José Sabogal’s work on the occasion of his exhibition at the Sociedad Filarmónica, suggesting that the paintings on display could be classified, in terms of “his ethical and artistic approach,” into three [...]

The Puerto Rican writer, Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, expresses his view of the early production of the painter, Domingo García, who created art “en el marco del nacionalismo cultural de la década del 1950” [in the context of the 1950s cultural [...]

This article by Alberto Gerchunoff, a Russian writer and journalist based in Buenos Aires, criticizes “los predicadores del americanismo, (…) a la vez nacionalistas y continentalistas” [the preachers of Latin Americanism, (…) who are both [...]

This review considers Julia Codesido’s work within the context of art and literature produced by women, noting that this genre “is uniquely attuned to feeling and expression.” Though historically recognized solely in terms of family or social [...]

This article was written by the Peruvian politician and writer, Magda Portal, focusing on the work of the artist, Elena Izcue. In Portal’s opinion, looking at the past would not represent a step backward, since the past is where we find the promise [...]

Ventura García Calderón asserts in this prologue that, in Latin America, the Spanish and Indian races did not mix and that the former ignored the latter even though it was, in his view, “one of the most perfect civilizations in the world.” He [...]