Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this article, the art critic Walter Engel, an Austrian based in Colombia, wrote an overview of how various contemporary artists represent the human figure. To Engel, regarding this genre, in concept “no period or country may claim [it] for [...]

In this article, poet and art critic Jorge Gaitán Durán takes stock of the activities that took place on the Colombian art scene in 1946. He begins with a reflection on the overall state of the visual arts in the country. He asserts that 1946 [...]

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 [...]

In this manuscript, Polish critic Casimiro Eiger, who lived in Colombia, discusses the work in the first solo exhibition of painter Marco Ospina, held at Galerías de Arte in 1949. In Eiger’s view, the merit of Ospina’s work lies in its order. [...]

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, [...]

Published in the catalogue to the exhibition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Primer Salón de Arte Moderno, this text by Sylvia Juliana Suárez presents the idea, process and results of a curatorial and editorial project formulated by [...]

In the introduction to the catalogue of the exhibition Pintura abstracta de Colombia (Biblioteca Luís Ángel Arango, Bogotá, June 11-25, 1958), Marta Traba points out two problems related to the reception and production of abstract art in Colombia [...]

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 text, Colombian art critic Eduardo Serrano—curator of the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogotá—presents the exhibition Arte y Política held at that institution in 1974. Serrano asserts that politics is more than a recurring theme in the work [...]

This article by Colombian poet and journalist Rogelio Echavarría sparked a controversy on Colombian painting of the time and its role in a broader Latin American art.  The author begins by contextualizing the problem.  According to Echavarría, a [...]

In this article, poet and critic Luis Vidales expresses his position on the debate surrounding abstract and figurative art, a polemic central to Colombian art at the time. First, Vidales argues that certain concepts have been poorly defined in [...]

Poet and occasional art critic Jorge Gaitán Durán asserts that the show Pintores colombianos jóvenes [Young Colombian Painters] was historically significant because it was the first salon of young artists held in Colombia. He states that the event [...]

This is the first part of an article published by critic María Elvira Iriarte in 1984 in which she reconstructs the period during which abstract art came to play a central role in the visual arts in Colombia. In a chronological overview, Iriarte [...]

In this 1950 article, Luis Vidales describes the view Colombian critics had of abstract art, and while on the subject, he introduces the work of the Colombian painter Marco Ospina. Vidales begins by discussing how art critics have reacted to new [...]

[This document includes] a four-page brochure whose first page reads: “Universidad Nacional de Colombia/ Museo Nacional/ Exposición de pintura/ contemporánea/ octubre 1948.” The other three pages contain the names of the artists participating [...]

In June 1960, the exhibition, 3000 años de arte colombiano [3000 Years of Colombian Art], was held in Miami and Washington. The journal Lámpara [Lamp] (Bogotá, published 1952–85) printed a supplement with writings by the curators who performed [...]