Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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

In this interview, Primitivo Evanán Poma explains to Nilo Espinoza that in Sarhua, the country village where he was born, “it was the custom that relatives would give quelcas or painted wooden boards to families that built a house and put a roof [...]

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

The Peruvian intellectual Jorge Falcón interviews José Sabogal about his visit to several cities in the United States in 1942 at the invitation of the State Department. Sabogal admits that until then, he did not have a complete view of the [...]

According to César Francisco Macera, José Sabogal’s first exhibition in Perú (Lima, 1919) had a profound impact on the country; viewers were astonished and appalled at “the new landscape” they were looking at. Sabogal responded to critiques [...]

The author clarifies that he has not yet been to the capital of Peru, but this has not prevented him from visiting José Sabogal’s Exhibition of Woodcut Prints in Lima time and time again. There is nothing absurd about it, says José Eulogio [...]

The author believes “there is almost no hesitation” in recognizing the genius of José Sabogal on the eve of his exhibition in 1921. Speaking in glowing terms, M. E. Mendizábal explains that Sabogal’s paintings shed light on those living in [...]

Though he does not mention a change as such in José Sabogal’s latest paintings, the author detects the presence or hint of certain nuances he had not noticed before. Carlos Raygada compares Procesión del Señor de los Milagros—painted in 1923, [...]

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

In his article about the exhibition of works by José Sabogal held at the Sociedad Filarmónica in Lima in 1937, Estuardo Núñez suggests that Sabogal’s paintings were not just the product of a particular school or trend but were required [...]

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 [...]

Carlos Raygada claims that José Sabogal’s work combines technical mastery with a “moody” aesthetic to produce an accurate expression of the country’s sensibilities. The critic describes Sabogal’s paintings as unusually controversial [...]

In his review of José Sabogal’s 1937 exhibition, the author claims that an analysis of the evolution of the painter’s work reveals “a single driving thought and a single, constant desire for modernity, as well as a sense of the vernacular.” [...]

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 [...]

The author of this article is entranced by José Sabogal’s use of color in his works. He also thinks the painter has already expressed, in some of his paintings, an undeniable sense of “Peruvian-ness,” forging a new technique that blends the [...]

In the author’s opinion there has seldom been a fairer appointment, because José Sabogal is not a token candidate, he is a hard-working painter. Another factor is the “authentic Peruvian-ness” of what José Eulogio Garrido calls the fervent [...]

According to the author of this article José Sabogal is, above all, “someone who expresses Peruvian-ness,” one who has not only developed an original technique, but has also managed to expose profound and unprecedented aspects of the country’s [...]

In this text, José Sabogal, who is outraged, writes about a colonial fountain in the city of Cuzco that has been “savagely and mercilessly torn from its secular place.” That fountain, the painter explains, was “the people of Cuzco’s favorite [...]

The author of this article thinks that Peru does a better job of addressing its potential in the artistic arena than in the social or political sphere, although this has begun to change in recent years. In his opinion, José Sabogal’s paintings are [...]

In this article, Carlos Solari asserts that the medium of “wood engraving has always been very suggestive” for painter José Sabogal. “The synthetic quality that it requires [befits] the temperamental characteristics for which he is known,” [...]

On the occasion of the party organized for José Sabogal by “young Peruvians in Buenos Aires,” the author notes the group’s obvious admiration for and acknowledgment of the artist, based on their shared feelings and ideals. The works of art [...]

The author explains that not many Latin American artists exhibit their work in Buenos Aires (other than those from the countries of the Río de la Plata region: Uruguay and Argentina), since European artists tend to be more enthusiastically received [...]

In this text, Carlos Solari (alias “Don Quijote”) discusses articles on Peruvian painter Sabogal that appeared in the most important Buenos Aires-based newspapers (three of them in particular). The article in La Prensa speaks of the “modern [...]

The author notes José Sabogal’s comments about his earlier travels and his training in Europe, which he said was helpful for learning “the tricks of the trade, how to move one’s hand smoothly, that’s all,” but claimed that he resisted any [...]

This text by eminent thinker, politician, and journalist José Carlos Mariátegui comments on José Sabogal—the founder of pictorial Indianism in Peru—on the occasion of his upcoming show at the Sociedad Amigos del Arte in Buenos Aires (1928). [...]

The critic Carlos Solari (alias “Don Quijote”) reviews about thirty works that José Sabogal, the founder of Peruvian indigenist painting, brought to Lima after spending several months in Cuzco (c. 1925). In Solari’s opinion, the painter is [...]

This article includes lyrical and historical references to Cuzco, lauding the marvelous Inca monuments of the city. The author nonetheless wonders if it might be possible to find, among the Cuzco Indians, “a shared spiritual foundation” between [...]

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 [...]

The author José Alfredo Hernández describes José Sabogal as a fully-developed artist with a clearly-defined technique, whose work should only be judged according to appropriately demanding criteria. Hernández mentions the indisputable beauty of [...]

This article, written in 1919, was published several months after José Sabogal’s first exhibition due to, as the author explains, “the congestion of opinions, appraisals, and enthusiasm” that circulated at the time. Elvira García y García [...]

This article discusses the first exhibition in Lima (at Casa Brandes, in 1919) of the work of José Sabogal, who, after many years of study in Europe and Argentina, speaks out against the prevailing academicism in Peru and the art “of likeness” [...]

This article by Luis E. Valcárcel was originally published in El Comercio, the Cuzco newspaper (January 31, 1919) where José Sabogal painted his canvases. According to Valcárcel, the paintings exhibited that year at Casa Brandes (Lima) “are not [...]

In this [document about] Sabogal’s first exhibition in Lima, the author wrongly declares that he is a “painter from Cuzco” because that is where he painted the works in the exhibition. The reviewer also has some reservations about the canvases [...]

According to this article, this exhibition presented people in Lima with a rare opportunity “to see absolutely modern painting,” which prizes “emotive qualities, sincerity, and the power of values” more highly than the typical “familiar [...]

Sabogal was from the province of Cajamarca but studied in Europe and Argentina; here he is described as a talented painter who was considered “rare” in Lima art circles, so that his emergence in the capital city “will bring light to many.” [...]

In this essay Mirko Lauer discusses two approaches to the contemporary interpretation of the visual arts during the pre-capitalist period. Lauer uses the latest ideological definition of creative expression as an umbrella term under which he includes [...]

This charter document lists the main cultural guidelines established by the self-styled Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas Peruanas (1968–80). The text, which is divided into several chapters, discusses a number of prior situations and [...]

This article briefly discusses the connections between “revolution” and “culture”—in this case in terms of the military government led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968–75). The anonymous author notes that because the revolution “ [...]

This brief interview with Fernando de Szyszlo took place upon his return to Lima after having lived in Paris—which he calls “a fountain of life”—for a number of years. With enthusiasm, he describes the stimulating cultural milieu of the [...]

In this article, Samuel Pérez Barreto argues that there is a connection between Fernando de Szyszlo’s polemic statement “there are no painters in Peru” and writer Juan Ríos’s assertion in response that there are excellent painters in the [...]

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 “ [...]

In response to the survey published by the Lima newspaper El Comercio as to the difference between “classical” and “modern” art, respondents provided different and, in some cases, contradictory answers. Responding to the question regarding [...]

This questionnaire-like interview with José Sabogal addresses his recent stay in Mexico, which lasted for a number of months. The interviewer asserts that Sabogal “is one of our most valuable young artists,” and explains that he has already [...]

This article is about a trip taken by the author, José Eulogio Garrido and José Sabogal, the founder of Peruvian indigenist painting, to the community of Sanchique, in the province of Otuzco in northern Peru. The author describes the mountain [...]

In this newspaper article José Eulogio Garrido describes his impressions on first meeting José Sabogal in the city of Trujillo (where he was born), and admits to having been one of the few people who were able to recognize an outstanding artist [...]

In this article the writer Humberto Suárez (who uses the pseudonym Kocha-Puma) profiles the photographer Martín Chambi. Suárez describes the city of Cuzco as an emblematic artistic center that indigenous artists should work to promote. He [...]

The aim of this article by José Uriel García, known throughout Peru for his book El nuevo indio, published in 1930, is to argue that José Sabogal is the emblematic contemporary Peruvian painter. Sabogal is, in García’s view, a founding figure [...]

In this newspaper article, Oscar Cerruto discusses the work of the photographer Martín Chambi. Cerruto refers to Benedetto Croce’s idealistic philosophical concept about expressive beauty, which he uses to defend the artistic nature of photography [...]

In this text, José Sabogal contextualizes his description of the Sunday market in Huancayo, where inhabitants of villages in Junín and Ayacucho go to sell their crafts. He remarks on the work of Mariano Flórez, his engraved gourds in particular, [...]

Carmen Saco describes Julia Codesido’s 1929 exhibition “as a process, the radical dissolution of a dying world in which one race withdraws and others rise triumphant along with a way of perceiving long-established art as distinct from art that is [...]