| Alejandro Obregón | |
|---|---|
La Violencia, oil on canvas, 1948; portrait of an unknown pregnant women killed during the El Bogotazo, sketched in Bogota´s Central Cemetery |
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| Born | 4 June 1920 Barcelona, Spain |
| Died | 11 April 1992 |
| Field | painting, mural, sculpture, engraving |
Daniel Alberto Alejandro María de la Santísima Trinidad Obregón Roses commonly known as Alejandro Obregón (4 June 1920 - 11 April 1992) was a Colombian painter, muralist, sculptor and engraver.
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Obregón was born in Barcelona, Spain, the son of a Colombian father and a Catalan mother. Most of his childhood was spent in Barranquilla, Colombia and Liverpool, England. In 1939, he studied fine arts in Boston for a year and then returned to Barcelona to serve as Vice Consul of Colombia for four years. In 1948 he became Director of the School of Fine Arts in Santafé de Bogotá where he was influenced by the fresco style of masters Pedro Nel Gómez and Santiago Martinez Delgado.
The following year he moved to Paris and exhibited work throughout France, Germany and Switzerland. He then moved to Alba, near Avignon, where he remained until 1955. A painting from that year, Still Life in Yellow, shows that his personal style was fully developed, with the formal elements that came to characterize his work. In 1962 he won the Salón de Artistas Colombianos Prize, establishing him as a major 20th century Colombian artist.
Obregón's is primarily a painter. His compositions are usually divided horizontally into two areas of different pictorial value or size, but of equal visual intensity. Other elements are placed against them. Colour plays a fundamental role in integrating the structures of his design, using geometric forms and expressionism.
The Colombian historian Eugenio Barney refers to "periods" in Obregón's work, characterized by predominant colours. His painting shows the influence of Picasso and Graham Sutherland, although these are only points of departure. During the 1960s Obregón used a pictographic system of his own invention, with formal and chromatic symbols. This system was recognized at the Ninth São Paulo Biennial, where he represented Colombia in his own pavilion and was awarded the Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho Grand Prize for Latin America.
Over a period of four decades, Obregón incorporated into his painting a repertory of themes that transcend literary reference and are unmistakably Colombian in character. From his still life's of the 1950s to his landscapes of the sky, the sea and the buildings of Cartagena de Indias, where he worked until his death, Obregón's work is multifaceted. He conveys his feeling for the geography and wildlife of Colombia, his love of family and his passion for women. His subjects remind the viewer of loyalty, friendship, memory and ultimately of the wonder of life, however insignificant it may seem in terms of the cosmos.
Obregón is the Colombian artist perhaps most closely identified with the spirit of artistic renewal manifested in the 1950s in his country. It was during this period that Obregón, Enrique Grau, Fernando Botero, Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar and Édgar Negret, came to be known as the "Big Five" of Colombian art. At different times throughout his career, Obregón also produced works related to political violence in Colombia since 1948. Estudiante Muerto, awarded the national prize for Colombia at the 1956 Guggenheim International Exhibition, belongs to a group of paintings commemorating students and popular leaders who lost their lives during this period of social unrest. Also in 1956, Obregón's, Cattle Drowning in the Magdalena River, was awarded first prize at the Gulf Caribbean Competition in Houston, Texas an exhibition that also included works by the "Big Five".
Colour has always played an essential role in his work, both on an affective level and as a unifying element of the composition. The elegiac and dramatic tone of this painting, in which an altar-like table serves as a stage setting for death, is heightened by the dominance of the red colour in the geometrically articulated composition.
Obregón died on April 11, 1992, succumbing to a brain tumor.