Mario Abreu
Mario Abreu (August 22, 1919 - February 20, 1993) was a Venezuelan artist known as the “master of magic objects”.[1]
Biography
Competent in drawing since childhood, Abreu made his first drawings aged 9 and 10, when he painted his first landscapes, and moved to Caracas at a young age. He worked as a laborer in Casa Benzo while studying at night to finish his primary education. Later he attended night school from 9 to 11 pm at the Caracas School of Fine and Applied Arts, directed by Antonio Monsantos. In 1942, after winning a painting competition and winning a scholarship worth 100 bolivars per month, he is able to leave work and attend the day courses at the same School, from which he graduated in 1947. He participated in the Free Art Workshop, founded the year after his graduation.
In 1951 Mario Abreu received the National Prize for Painting at the XII Annual Official Hall Venezuelan Art, allowing you to get a scholarship to continue studies in Europe. Between 1952 and 1961 lived in Paris, where he develops an intense intellectual life and begin a new phase of his work.
Back in 1961 to Caracas. In 1975 he received the National Prize of Plastic Arts of Venezuela and in 1985, Armando Reveron Award, granted by the Venezuelan Association of Artists.
Always maintained an independent position, lonely and far from institutional activity, identified in the search of magical realism that surrounds the art of his time.
At his death is given its name to the Museum of Visual Arts in Ottawa, now the Museum of Contemporary Art in Maracay Mario Abreu (MACMA).