Oswaldo Guayasamín

OSWALDO GUAYASAMÍN (Quito, Ecuador, 1919 - Baltimore, U.S.A., 1999).
"De orbe novo decades, 1984.
40 engravings + 17 lithographs on Guarro paper. Copies 209/350.
Text by Pedro Mártir de Anglería (1457- 1526).
Publisher: Galería y ediciones Rembrandt S.A.
Damaged in the box.
Signed and justified.
Measurements: 50 x 35 cm; 52 x 40 x 9 cm (box).
Oswaldo made this work from the facsimile of Las Décadas del Nuevo Mundo by Pedro Mártir de Anglería. The volume includes the entire historical text, accompanied by forty engravings numbered and signed by Guayasamín, as well as seventeen color lithographs that visually enrich the content.
Oswaldo Guayasamín, one of the most relevant Ecuadorian painters, showed artistic talent since his childhood and was trained at the School of Fine Arts in Quito, despite his father's opposition. The death of a close friend during a civil conflict deeply marked his vision of art as a means of social denunciation. In 1941 he obtained the title of artist and the First Prize at the Mariano Aguilera Salon, and a year later he held his first solo exhibition, which caused controversy.
His work attracted international attention, especially that of magnate Nelson Rockefeller, which favored his projection. After traveling through the United States, Mexico and several Latin American countries, Guayasamín focused his painting on denouncing social injustice, especially that suffered by indigenous peoples. He developed an expressionist, emphatic and emotive style, focused on human suffering and the tragedies of the 20th century.
He won numerous awards, such as the Grand Prize at the Biennials of Barcelona (1955) and São Paulo (1957), and held international exhibitions and murals in important institutions in America, Europe and Asia. In 1976 he founded the Guayasamín Foundation, to which he donated his work, and in his last years he worked on his most ambitious project: The Chapel of Man, in Quito, which remained unfinished at his death in 1999. He was posthumously honored with the José Martí Award and his artistic legacy lives on in international collections and in the foundation that bears his name.