Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, Francisco Da Antonio elaborates on a chronological critique on the work of Gabriel Marcos, who began his artistic training both in Venezuela (at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas de Caracas), and abroad (Italy and [...]

In 1988, on the occasion of the Primer Salón Nacional Cervecería de Oriente: Arte ingenuo, pintura y talla populares (Barcelona, state of Anzoáteguí), critic Francisco Da Antonio ponders concepts like “naive art,” “popular art,” and “ [...]

describing her beginnings and her handling of the potter’s wheel and moves on to describe her turn toward modeling clay. He also mentions the short period in which she creates geometric work, to then return to “the material.” The critic reviews [...]

In this document, the critic Francisco Da Antonio develops a chronological essay on the life and work of Domenico Casasanta, starting in 1958, when the artist arrived in Venezuela. After almost a decade in which he produced no work, in 1968, the [...]

In this text, the critic Francisco Da Antonio reviews an exhibition of drawings by the Venezuelan painter Pascual Navarro held at Galería XX2 in Caracas. The review questions the intrinsic nature of a retrospective exhibition that does not include [...]

The critic and curator Francisco Da Antonio salutes the Venezuelan folk painter Bárbaro Rivas and reintroduces him with biographical details and an explanation of the circumstances involved in the production of some of his works. The critic mentions [...]

In this essay, Francisco Da Antonio discusses the career of the Venezuelan naïf painter Elsa Morales, whom he discovered, promoted, and studied. The essay refers to the major reviews of her exhibitions, beginning with the first one in 1969 (written [...]

The critic and historian Francisco Da Antonio writes the prologue in the catalogue for Cristos (Caracas: Galería El ave que llovía, 1972), the exhibition of works by the visual artist Miguel von Dangel. The critic interprets the work Retrato [...]

In this essay on Venezuelan painter Héctor Poleo, historian and critic Francisco Da Antonio focuses on the last twenty years of the artist’s production and ventures a stylistic chronology and interpretation of his art. For instance, he argues that [...]

In this critical essay, historian Francisco Da Antonio discusses the indebtedness of artist Héctor Poleo to Mexican muralism in terms of form and pictorial technique. He also explores the way in which Poleo’s work differs from the aesthetic- [...]

In this four-part essay, the critic Francisco Da Antonio discusses—extensively and for the first time—the naïf painting produced by the Venezuelan folk artist Bárbaro Rivas. Da Antonio recalls the discovery of this folk painter, an illiterate, [...]