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 [...]

In this article, Alejandro Obregón criticizes the exhibition of works by fellow painter Enrique Grau at the Sociedad Colombiana de Arquitectos in Bogotá in 1948. Obregón compares the work in this show with Grau’s earlier production, asserting [...]

In this short article, the art critic Eduardo Serrano introduces the work of artists Enrique Grau Araujo and Édgar Negret on the occasion of their eightieth birthdays. Serrano assures us that Grau has enriched the figurative tradition in Colombian [...]

In this article, Walter Engel, an Austrian critic who lived in Colombia, reviews the group exhibition held on the occasion of the opening of “El Caballito” gallery in Bogotá in 1956. Engel asserts that the opening of the gallery represents a [...]

In this article, Jorge Gaitán Durán discusses the work produced by the Colombian artist Enrique Grau in the late 1940s. Gaitán Durán mentions one of the main paradoxes of modern art: that principles and solutions exist [...]

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 text, Austrian historian and critic Walter Engel, who lived in Colombia starting in 1938, discusses the suspension of the Salón Anual de Artistas Colombianos from 1947 to 1949. He observes that during that period “historic” events took [...]

[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 [...]

This document by Óscar Delgado, editor of the Colombian journal Índice Cultural [Cultural Index], reports on the creation of the Movimiento Nacional de Artes Plásticas [National Visual Arts Movement] in 1955. The article presents the main [...]