Oswaldo Guayasamin

OSWALDO GUAYASAMÍN (Quito, Ecuador, 1919 - Baltimore, U.S.A., 1999).
"Bull and Condor", 1955.
Preparatory sketch in ink on paper.
Signed in the lower margin.
Provenance: private collection of Miguel Bosé. Previously a gift from the artist to the bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín.
Measurements: 20 x 12,5 cm; 31 x 23 cm (frame).

Guayasamín initially developed the allegorical theme of the bull and the condor as a critique of Spanish colonialism and the damage caused to Ecuadorian culture. He returned to bullfighting in relation to the Hispanic imprint in America on several occasions.

One of the greatest names in Ecuadorian painting, Oswaldo Guayasamín demonstrated artistic gifts already in childhood, and even sold some paintings in the Plaza de la Independencia in his native Quito in his early years. Despite his father's opposition, he entered the School of Fine Arts in the Ecuadorian capital to study painting and sculpture, in the midst of the so-called Four Days' War. In 1941 he obtained the title and First Prize at the Mariano Aguilera Salon in Quito, and the following year he held his first solo exhibition, at the age of twenty-three. Between the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943 Guayasamín is in the United States, and later travels to Mexico, where he begins to work as an assistant to Orozco. He would later make a series of trips through Latin America, always finding the same situation of oppression of the indigenous society, to which he himself belonged. From then on, this will be a constant theme in his work. In these years of youth Guayasamín obtained all the National Prizes in his country, and at the age of thirty-six he won the Grand Prize of the III Bienal Hispanoamericana de Arte, celebrated in 1955 in Barcelona. Later he also won the same award at the São Paulo Biennial (1957). Throughout his career, this master exhibited his work individually not only in various Latin American countries, but also in many European countries, the Soviet Union, China and the United States. In addition to his easel paintings, he painted murals, sculptures and monuments, now present in Latin America and Europe. In 1971 Guayasamín was named president of the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, in 1978 a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, and a year later an honorary member of the Italian Academy of Arts. Currently his work is widely represented in the Foundation he created in Quito, and also in prominent international art galleries and private collections.