Alejandro Obregón

Alejandro Obregn

Photograph by Guillermo Angulo.Birth name Alejandro Jess Obregn

RosesBorn 4 June 1920

Barcelona, Catalonia,Spain

Died 11 April 1992 (aged 71)Cartagena, Bolvar,Colombia

Spouse Ilva Rash-IslaRodriguezFreda SargentSonia OsorioSaint-Malo

Nationality Spanish-ColombianField PaintingMovement Abstract, Surrealism,

CubismWorks Estudiante Muerto

El VelorioTierra, Mar, y Aire

Alejandro ObregnFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaDaniel Alberto Alejandro Mara de laSantsima Trinidad Obregn Roses,commonly known as Alejandro Obregn,(4 June 1920 11 April 1992) was aColombian painter, muralist, sculptor andengraver.

Contents1 Biography2 Style and elements3 Periods4 Inuences5 The "Big Five"6 La Violencia works7 Murals8 Exhibitions and awards9 Selected artworks10 References11 External links

BiographyObregn was born in Barcelona, Spain,the son of a Colombian father and aCatalan mother. The Obregn familyowned a fabrics factory in Barranquilla.[1]Most of his childhood was spent inBarranquilla, Colombia and Liverpool,England. After returning to Barranquilla,he decided to become an artist.[2] He studied ne arts in Boston for a year in1939, then returned to Barcelona to serve as Vice Consul of Colombia for fouryears. He married Ilva Rasch-Isla, the daughter of poet Miguel Rasch-Isla, duringhis time in Spain.[1] In 1948, he became Director of the School of Fine Arts inSantaf de Bogot, where he was inuenced by the fresco style of masters PedroNel Gmez and Santiago Martinez Delgado.[citation needed] He left the School of

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Fine Arts and moved to France with his second wife, Sonia Osorio; he latermarried his third wife, English painter Freda Sargent.[3] After travelling aroundEurope, he returned to Barranquilla in 1955.[3] Obregn died on April 11, 1992,succumbing to a brain tumor. He lived and worked exclusively in Cartagena from1970 until his death in 1992, the las 22 years of his life.CareerObregn presented his rst solo exhibition in Colombia in 1945.[1] Heparticipated in the fth and sixth Saln de Artistas Colombianos in 1944 and1945, which attracted attention from press and critics.[1] In 1945, Obregnsettled in Barranquilla where he won rst prize for Dorso de mujer at the rstSaln Anual de Artistas Costeos and showed his second solo exhibition inFebruary 1946.[1] In 1949, he moved to Paris and exhibited work throughoutFrance, Germany and Switzerland.[citation needed] He then moved to Alba, nearAvignon, where he remained until 1955. A painting from that year, Still Life inYellow, shows that his personal style was fully developed, with the formalelements that came to characterize his work.[citation needed] In 1955, Souvenir ofVenice (1954) was acquired for the Museum of Modern Art New York, makingObregn one of the few Colombians in the museum's collection.[3] In 1962, hewon the Saln de Artistas Colombianos Prize, establishing him as a major 20thcentury Colombian artist.[citation needed]

Style and elementsObregn is primarily a painter. His compositions are usually divided horizontallyinto two areas of dierent pictorial value or size, but of equal visual intensity.Other elements are placed against them. His style is characterized by use of color,exploration of traits and strokes through brush handling, and employment oftransparency and impastoes.[2] Landscapes were translated into geometricsymbols of Colombia.[4] Obregn is a good example of the abstract Surrealisttrend in Latin America.[5]Color plays a fundamental role in integrating the structures of his design, usinggeometric forms and expressionism.[citation needed] Both on an aective level andas a unifying element of the composition, color is an essential part of Obregon'sstyle. The elegiac and dramatic tone of El Velorio, for example, is heightened bythe dominance of the red color in the geometrically articulated composition.[2]Critic Marta Traba identied a series of characteristic elements in Obregon'swork: personal poetic values; self suciency in regard to reality, indeed starting


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from it; expressive intention; freedom of form; search for identity based on thelandscape, zoology, and ora; elliptic space people by magic elements; andcontempt for urban culture.[2] Also unique to Obregon is that instead of faithfullypainting what he sees, he made extensive use of his personal imagination andvitality.[2] From his still life's of the 1950s to his landscapes of the sky, the sea andthe buildings of Cartagena de Indias, where he worked until his death, Obregn'swork is multifaceted. He conveys his feeling for the geography and wildlife ofColombia, his love of family and his passion for women. His subjects remind theviewer of loyalty, friendship, memory and ultimately of the wonder of life, howeverinsignicant it may seem in terms of the cosmos.

PeriodsBetween 1942 and 1946, Obregn assimilated dierent inuences.[2] His paintingshows the inuence of Picasso and Graham Sutherland, although these are onlypoints of departure. Between 1947 and 1957, inuenced by Goya and Picasso, hepainted themes such as lunatic asylums, madmen in cafes, and dogs. He waswitness to the popular revolt of April 9, 1948, and became especially interested ininterpreting that event, which would reach its maximum expression in his oilViolencia.[2] In his third period, from 1958 to 1965, Obregn made another trip toEurope and the United States.[2] During the 1960s, Obregn used a pictographicsystem of his own invention, with formal and chromatic symbols. This system wasrecognized at the Ninth So Paulo Biennial, where he represented Colombia in hisown pavilion and was awarded the Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho Grand Prize forLatin America.[citation needed] After 1966, once he earned wide recognition at homeand abroad, he switched from oils to acrylic.[2]

InuencesOver a period of four decades, Obregn incorporated into his painting a repertoryof themes that are unmistakably Colombian in character.Obregn took inuence from European culture, while retaining an Andeanimagery and stylistic creation, using guitars, bulls, and the Andean condor in hispieces.[6] In 1959, Obregn painted his rst condor, which has since appeared inalmost fty canvases during his career. While alluding to the nation, as the condorgures in Colombia's coat of arms, in Obregn's work, the condor also refers tothe exaltation of the might of American nature, the ideal of liberty, and the powerof vitality.[2] The use of guitar iconography may have come from the inuence ofPicasso, whose Cubist inuence was the starting point for Obregn's artwork.[6][7]At dierent times throughout his career, Obregn produced works related to


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political violence in Colombia, such as La Violencia, since 1948. EstudianteMuerto, awarded the national prize for Colombia at the 1956 GuggenheimInternational Exhibition,[citation needed] belonged to a group of paintingscommemorating students and popular leaders who lost their lives during thisperiod of social unrest.

The "Big Five"Obregn is the artist perhaps most closely identied with the spirit of artisticrenewal manifested in the 1950s in Colombia. It was during this period thatObregn, Enrique Grau, Fernando Botero, Eduardo Ramrez Villamizar and dgarNegret, came to be known as the "Big Five" of Colombian art. Also in 1956,Obregn's Cattle Drowning in the Magdalena River was awarded rst prize at theGulf Caribbean Competition in Houston, Texas, an exhibition that also includedworks by others from the "Big Five".

La Violencia worksEl Velorio (The Wake), also known by El estudiante (The Student) and othersimilar names, was one of Obregn's most prominent commentaries on LaViolencia. In this piece, Obregn displays his early cubist inuence, evident in thereduction of details and objects into elemental shapes.[8] While the simple imageappears to display a body, with bandages covering the man's body and a partiallysevered leg, the context of the piece provides more information.[8] Obregnpainted this piece during La Violencia in Colombia. Obregn was one of the rstColombian artists to comment on La Violencia.[8] El Velorio refers to a specicevent that happened on June 8 and 9 of 1954; a student uprising at the NationalUniversity against the dictatorship of President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla resulted inthe massacre of thirteen students by army forces.[8] Contemporaries IgnacioGmez Jaramillo and Enrique Grau also witnessed this event, but Obregn'spainting is more abstract and more expressive than their interpretations of thesame event.[9] The departure from anecdotal issues and the use ofnon-naturalistic lines and colors and fragmentation of the gure with expressivepurposes in El Velorio inuenced other artists interested in addressing the socio-political issues during the sixties.[9]In La Violencia (1962), Obregn conveyed the ominous atmosphere andperversion evident in the violence that occurred in rural areas.[9] This paintingsuggests the gure of a woman on her back, a gure which blends with thelandscape. She has been attacked and killed; the skin of her face and seems tohave been torn up. The gray body with scratches and subtle touches of redcreates an impression of desolation. While the presentation date of La Violencia


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cannot tie the painting to any specic instance, it can be inferred that he wasaware of the atrocities of the time.[9]

MuralsTierra, Mar, y Aire (Earth, Sea, and Wind) is a mural currently on the faade ofthe Mezhari building, located at 53 Carrera and 76th Street in Barranquilla,Colombia. Obregn was commissioned to create the mural by Samuel Mezhari,father of the current owner and resident of the building, Mair Mezhari-Tourgemen, when the artist was at the midpoint of his artistic career. Obregnwas paid 15,000.00 pesos to complete the project.[10] It took Obregn around ayear to nish the mural, as he chose an extremely delicate and time-consumingapproach, requiring a complex process called mosaic. To construct the mural, heglued individual pieces of cristinac on the wall of the Mezhari building.[10] Tierra,Mar y Aire covers the entire height of the three-story building wall. The surface ofthe work measures 9 6 m (29.52 19.68 ft.).[10] Obregn utilized intense colorsand symbols that pay tribute to the tropical nature of the area. Although, themural is in need of repair, no eort has been made as the materials are no longerbeing manufactured.[10]Cosas de Aire (Air Things), created in 1970, was donated by The BBVA Bank ofColombia to the Museo de Arte Moderno de Brranquilla in 2008. It is an acrylicmural on mortar cement, measuring 16.5x9 meters, featuring bright andsweeping geometric patterns, devoid of the brushstrokes that are typical of hiswork. It is the last of a series of ve murals painted by Obregn inBarranquilla.[11]

Exhibitions and awards1956 Cattle Drowning in the Magdelena River, Gulf Caribbean Competition,Houston, Texas. First prize[12]1956 Estudiante Muerto, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation InternationalExhibition. National prize1962 Saln de Artistas Colombianos1999 Arte y violencia en Colombia desde 1948, Museo de Arte Moderno,Bogota, Columbia[9]2009 50 Years, 50 Works: Art of Latin America, Caribbean of the 20thCentury, Museo de Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia[13]

Selected artworks


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Tierra, Mar, y Aire, 1957[10]Estudiante Muerto, 1956[14]Last Condor, 1965[14]Torocondor[14]Approaching Cyclone, 1960[14]Carnivorous Flowers[14]Huesos de mis bestias: el alcatraz, 1966[14]Cosas de Aire, 1970 [11]

References^ a b c d e Chico, Camilo. "Libro sobre Alejandro Obregn (I)"(http://www.resonancias.org/content/read/1375/libro-sobre-alejandro-obregon-i-por-camilo-chico/) (in Spanish). Resonancias. Retrieved 27 April 2012.

1.

^ a b c d e f g h i j Velez, Santiago Londono (2001). Benjamin Villegas, ed. ColombianArt: 3,500 Years. Villegas Editores. pp. 309312. ISBN 9589698271.

2.

^ a b c Camilo, Chico. "Libro sobre Alejandro Obregn (II)"(http://www.resonancias.org/content/read/1393/libro-sobre-alejandro-obregon-ii-por-camilo-chico/) (in Spanish). Resonancias. Retrieved 27 April 2012.

3.

^ Johns Hopkins University Press (1994). Art of Latin America: 19001980.Baltimore: Inter-American Development Bank. ISBN 0-906027-33-0.

4.^ Scott, John F (1999). Latin American Art: ancient to modern. Gainesville, FL:University Press of Florida. ISBN 0813016452.

5.

^ a b Baddeley, Oriana; Valerie Fraser (1989). Drawing the line: art and culturalidentity in contemporary Latin America. New York: Verso. pp. 7273.ISBN 0860912396.

6.

^ Museum of Modern Art, New York (1993). Latin American Artists of the TwentiethCentury. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. p. 129. ISBN 0870704311.

7.

^ a b c d Sullivan, Edward J (2007). The language of objects in the art of theAmericas. Hong Kong, China: Edward J. Sullivan. ISBN 9780300111064.

8.

^ a b c d e Malagon-Kurka, Mary Margaret. "Dos lenguajes contrastantes en el artecolombiano: nueva guracin e indexicalidad, en el contexto de la problemticasociopoltica de las dcadas de 1960 y 1980" (http://search.proquest.com/docview/233251476/1361D45508884E553BE/6?accountid=1149#center) (in Spanish).Revista de Estudios Sociales. Retrieved 29 April 2012.

9.

^ a b c d e "Obregn Mural in Urgent Need of Restoration" (http://www.artnexus.com/Notice_View.aspx?DocumentID=24143). ArtNexus. Retrieved 20 April 2012.

10.

^ a b ArtNexus. "Alejandro Obregn BBVA Mural Museo de Arte Moderno deBarranquilla Colombia" (http://www.artnexus.com/Notice_View.aspx?DocumentID=19827). ArtNexus. ArtNexus. Retrieved 27 April2012.

11.


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^ Traba, Marta (1994). Art of Latin America, 19001980. Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank. pp. 84, 9091, 127. ISBN 0940602717.

12.^ US Fed News Service. "IDB SPONSORS 50 YEARS, 50 WORKS: ART OF LATINAMERICA, CARIBBEAN OF THE 20TH CENTURY" (http://search.proquest.com/docview/470349395/1361D45508884E553BE/3?accountid=1149). US Fed NewsService. Retrieved 29 April 2012.

13.

^ a b c d e f ARTstor. "Search "Obregon" " (http://library.artstor.org/library/welcome.html#3%7Csearch%7C6%7CAll20Collections3A20obregon%7CFiltered20Search%7C%7C%7Ctype3D3626kw3Dobregon26geoIds3D26clsIds3D26id3Dall26bDate3D26eDate3D26dExact3D3126prGeoId3D). ARTstor, Inc. Retrieved 27 April 2012.

14.

External links(Spanish) National Museum of Colombia Obregon(http://www.museonacional.gov.co/resena.html)(Spanish) Book on Alejandro Obregon (I) by Camilo Chico(http://www.resonancias.org/content/read/1375/libro-sobre-alejandro-obregon-i-por-camilo-chico/)(Spanish) Book on Alejandro Obregon (II) (http://www.resonancias.org/content/read/1393/libro-sobre-alejandro-obregon-ii-por-camilo-chico/)ArtNexus "Obregon Mural in Urgent Need of Restoration"(http://www.artnexus.com/Notice_View.aspx?DocumentID=24143)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alejandro_Obregn&oldid=599586360"Categories: Modern artists Modern painters Colombian painters 1920 births1992 deaths Naturalized citizens of Colombia People from BarcelonaSpanish emigrants to Colombia

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Alejandro Obregón