Masterpieces of African American Art: Museum of Art - Deland

I was unfamiliar with the Museum of Art - Deland; that is, until I read an online article touting the quality of their staff -- of all things -- while sitting in the car waiting for my wife to complete and errand. I clicked through to the museum website upon completing the article and noted that they were featuring an exhibition of works by African-American artists -- titled Masterpieces of African American Art -- to commemorate Black History Month. Now I am not normally a celebrant but when Parlo came back to the car I suggested that we go visit this exhibition. She was in.

I have spent a fair amount of time in Deland during my residence in Florida but had not seen hide nor hair of a museum there. I found that it is housed in a relatively new building on the Stetson Campus; I should have known.

The museum was not very busy at that time of the morning. It was staffed by well-dressed, eager volunteers who were chomping at the bit to show off this facility of which they were so obviously proud.

We checked in at the reception desk where the layout of the feature exhibit was explained. The exhibition was titled Masterpieces of African American Art and featured more that 85 pieces drawn from two significant collections: (i) African American Art: We Too Dream America and (ii) a selection from the museum's permanent collection titled Purvis Young: Overtown's Visual Poet. We climbed to the top floor to begin our exploration of the first collection.

African American Art: We Too Dream America
This curation is broad, utilizing a variety of artists, styles, media, expressions and topics to show that African American art is not hemmed in or stereotypical. Like non-African American artists -- and even though straitened by their times and experiences -- African American artists can still capture and relay a broad array of Americana, both within and without their lived experiences.

Two of the works that jumped out at me immediately were Jazz Stories ... and Tar Beach #2. Faith Ringgold is an artist, educator, sculptor, and children's book author and illustrator who has doggedly pursued her career; and has the accolades and awards to prove it. She was born in Harlem during the Renaissance period and graduated from City College with Bachelors and Masters degrees in Art. She taught in the New York City School System and at the collegiate level all while pursuing her own personal art efforts. She has painted traditionally, produced sculptures, produced portraits of famous people, and produced quilts, some of her best received works of art. She is also a Children's Book author and illustrator and won the Caldecott Book Award for Tar Beach in 1992.

Faith has over 30 quilts to her credit. They are mostly written in the form of children's stories wherein each part of the quilt is a page.

Faith Ringgold
Jazz Stories: Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow
#1: Somebody Stole my Broken Heart,
2004

Faith Ringgold
Tar Beach #2
1990 - 1992

In the two quilts above we see the dichotomy of Faith's work. Tar Beach #2 is definitely child-like with panel-based story telling while Jazz Stories is all about the visual and appears to be targeted at an adult audience.

The second most impactful piece for me was The Harp (Lift Every Voice and Sing) by Augusta Savage. The piece is a stunning visual. But the story's conclusion is sad.

Augusta Savaga
The Harp (Lift Every Voice and Sing)
circa 1939

Augusta Savage was a black sculptor and educator working out of Harlem during the time of the Renaissance. She endured many hardships and disappointments in pursuit of her goals but was eventually rewarded with a commission to produce a piece to be exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair. The piece that she produced was a 16-foot-tall plaster sculpture that was inspired by the James Weldon and Rosamund Johnson classic Lift Every Voice and Sing.

The sculpture depicted a group of twelve stylized black singers in graduated heights that symbolized the strings of a harp. The sounding board was formed by the hand and arm of God, and a kneeling man holding music represented the foot pedal.

The Harp was exhibited in the court of the Contemporary Arts building and received much acclaim. Unfortunately, Augusta could not raise the funds to have the sculpture cast in bronze so it was destroyed at the end of the fair. A number of small replicas -- like the above -- exist.

Ms. Savage working on The Harp 

Aaron Douglas was a leading player in the Harlem Renaissance with his home being a major gathering point for the likes of Langston Hughes and W. E. du Bois. Aaron's Mr Bill is a much more refined and less hairy version of The Beggar from the Louis Dewis exhibition now showing at the the Orlando Museum of Art. It is somewhat reminiscent of the Berthe Morrisot style in that the face is well defined while the clothing is less so. There is a lot of empty space on the right side of the work and the subject is not looking out at the viewer. Beautiful palette of colors in the open space. Combination portraiture and abstract art. Almost sculpted hairline.

Aaron Douglas
Mr. Bill
c. 1940s

Selected other pieces from the African American Art selection are shown below:

Romare Bearden
All the Things You Are
1987

Jacob Lawrence
Builders #1
1972

Benny Andrews
Untitled (Woman in a Yellow Dress Under a Tree)
circa 1958 - 62

Robert S. Duncanson
Waterfall
Undated

Richmond Barthé
Stevedore
Undated

Herbert Gentry
Handshake
1991

Mary Lovelace O'Neal
The Mother of the Twins Carries a Gun
1994

Richard Yarde
Red Dress
1989

Ronald Joseph
Home - Paris
1951

Selected Pieces from Purvis Young: Overtown's Visual Poet
Purvis Young returned to Overton, a formerly thriving Black literary and cultural enclave in Miami, from a stint in prison for breaking and entering. Overton had been reduced to "a few square blocks of decay, despair, and devastation" and it is this place, and its people, that serve as the inspiration for Purvis' works.

Purvis began his effort by painting on any available material -- pieces of cardboard, pieces of wood, discarded books -- and then hanging the completed works on abandoned buildings in Good Bread Alley. His works came to the attention of collectors to include the Rubell family who, at one point, bought the entire contents of his studio and donated the more than 3000 pieces to museums around the country.

Mr Young was a prolific artist who constantly battted away recommendations that he should paint less in order to positively impact the value of his works. A selection of his works currently in the Deland Museum's permanent collection is shown below.

Purvis Young
Procession
circa 1995

Purvis Young
Figure Study
circa 1995

Purvis Young
Overtown Landscape

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I enjoyed this exhibition. The museum is uncrowded so one can examine the pieces at one's own pace. The one area in which I felt a void was in the information provided, both about the broader themes and on individual pieces.

This was great for Deland and should be visited as soon as possible as the exhibition ends March 17th.

©Everythingelse238

Homo sapiens: Ecological and demographic change agents; or just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Sprinkled throughout his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Hariri provides data showing ecological and demographic changes occurring simultaneously with mankind's expansion around the world. I bring that data together into a single space in this post.

Yuval states that it is a dirty little secret that other Homo species existed on the planet simultaneously with Homo sapiens; and the figure below illustrates that fact. According to the DNA data in the figure below, a proto -Homo sapiens branch grew off the Homo heidelbergensis base and flowered into full Homo sapiens around 325,000 years ago.

Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans
(Source: wikipedia.org)

The chart shows a number of Homo species existing simultaneously with Homo sapiens. It further shows that, with the exception of Homo naledi and Homo erectus, all of these species interbred with Homo sapiens either in Southern Africa or Eurasia. It shows that all Homo species, except Homo sapiens, terminated between 300,000 and 25,000 years ago.

Homo solensis, Homo florensis and a newly identified Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid species, all of whom have gone extinct, are not shown on the chart.

But these human species are not alone.

Ecological Impact
About 70,000 years ago Sapiens began looking at, and thinking about, the world around them differently. Yuval calls this the Cognitive Revolution. This new cognition resulted in the technologies, organizational skills, and vision that allowed Sapiens to break out of Asia and settle the wider world.

Yuval points to the colonization of Australia as one of the most important events in human history (akin to the Columbus and Apollo 11 journeys). It was the first time that a large terrestrial mammal had crossed from "Afro-Asia" to Australia. It was also the first time that humans had climbed to the top of the food chain on any landmass. It was not too good for the fauna (as shown in the below table).

Table 1. Sapiens impact on selected megafauna populations

Region/Country	First Entry (yrs ago)	Megafauna at First Entry	Megafauna at Period End	Period Duration	Comments
Australia	45,000	24 species	1	A few thousand years	Large number of smaller species also disappeared
North America	16,000	47 species	13	2,000 yrs	Thousands of smaller species of animals, birds, and insects also disappeared
South America	N/A	60 species	10	N/A	ditto
Wrangel Island (Arctic Ocean)	4000	N/A	0	Short
Madagascar	1500	2	0	Short	Elephant Bird and Giant Lemur
New Zealand	800	N/A	Majority extinct	200	As well as 60% of all birds

Table compiled from information sprinkled throughout Sapiens.

According to Yuval, "The first wave of Sapiens colonisation was one of the biggest ecological disasters to befall the animal kingdom":

• 70,000 years ago, the planet was home to approximately 200 genera of large animals weighing 100 pounds or more
• That number had declined to 100 by the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution (12,000 years ago)

Yuval: "Homo sapiens drove to extinction about half of the planet's big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing, or iron tools."

Yuval places faunal extinction into three waves:

• First wave -- occurred during the Cognitive Revolution
• Second wave -- occurred during the Agricultural Revolution
• Third wave -- driven by today's industrial activity (e.g., whales being killed by ships).

And the signatures of the first and second waves are eerily similar:

1. Rich and varied population of large animals; no trace of humans
2. Sapiens appear, as evidenced by artifacts
3. Men and women occupy center stage; most large animals, and many smaller ones, extinct.

Demographic Impact
The earlier chart shows that Homo sapiens tried to break out (unsuccessfully) of East Africa on two prior occasions -- 250,000 and 100,000 years ago -- before the successful exit approximately 80,000 years ago. Homo sapiens encountered Eurasia-based Homo species at this time.

The archaeological record shows that Homo solensis became extinct approximately 50,000 years ago -- as did Homo denisova -- while the Neanderthals died out 30,000 years ago. Homo florensis exited  12,000 years ago. Yuval offers two options for their disappearance: (i) Sapiens drove them to extinction through competition or (ii) genocide. Our most recent experiences on Explorer-contact with existing populations may prove to be illustrative as to the fate of those extinct populations.

North and South America were unknown to Eurasia prior to Columbus' first voyage in 1492 (and it took a while to figure out that this was a "new world," rather than a part of Asia) but within 121 years, 90% of the region's populace had died out (see Table 2).

Table 2. Demographic impacts of Old World contact with New

Region/Country	Peoples	Contact Point	Impact	Period	Comments
Caribbean Islands	Caribs, Arawaks, etc.	Columbus (1492)	Most of native population wiped out	21 years	Replaced with African slaves
Americas	Inca, Aztec, Maya, etc.	Cortez landing at Vera Cruz (1519)	90% population reduction	100 years	Unfamiliar diseases
Australia and New Zealand	Aborigines and Maoris	Cook’s 1771 expedition	Native populations declined by 90%	100 years	Replaced by Europeans
Tasmania	Palawa	ditto	From between 3,000 – 15,000 in 1803 to 400 in 1835	32 years

Table compiled from information sprinkled throughout Sapiens.

Prior to Columbus' arrival, the indigenous population in the Americas numbered around 60 million but wars, famine, and diseases -- against which the locals had no defense -- dropped the population down to 6 million 100 years later. According to a recent study published in Quartenary Science Reviews, the deaths occurred on such a large scale that they led to the "little Ice Age," an era of global cooling between the 16th and mid-19th century.

According to the researchers, large areas of farmland was abandoned as a result of the die-offs. This land was reclaimed by trees and flora which sucked enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that the average temperature dropped by 0.15 degrees Celsius.

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The human role in new world human population die-offs is clear but the jury is still out on other Homo species and megafauna. Archaeological evidence shows that we hunted megafauna but the question as to whether we hunted them to extinction has not been answered fully to everyone's satisfaction.

©Everythingelse238

Art exhibitions currently on show at Central Florida museums

I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of high-quality exhibitions on display within a two-hour radius of downtown Orlando. The exhibitions cover a wide variety of genres, topics, media and styles. In this post I highlight the ones that I have visited.

The Ringling -- Knights (February 3 - April 21, 2019)
The Ringling's (Sarasota, FL) Knights exhibition features Medieval and Renaissance arms and armor on loan from the collection of Florence's Museo Stibbert. According to the Museum, "... this extraordinary exhibition reveals the figure of the European knight in the middle ages and Renaissance through over 100 exquisite objects, including full suits of armor, helmets, swords, and other weaponry. The exhibition explores the function, history and craftsmanship of these exquisite objects, focusing on themes of love and war, jousts and tournaments, and the 19th-century revival of interest in medieval knighthood."

Mounted figure with Equestrian Barding suit of
armor

This is a stunning exhibit which is somewhat softened by the presence of nine paintings, none of which were previously familiar to me. Subsequent to attending the exhibit I have explored two of those paintings: Ottavio Amigoni's Apparition of Saints Faustinus and Jovita in the Defense of Brescia and Commemoration of the Joust of the Saracen of February 25, 1634.

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens -- Gauguin: Voyage to Paradise (February 10 - June 30, 2019)
I visited this exhibition before going over to the Ringling to see the Knights exhibit. It sounded idyllic: an exhibition of selected Gauguin works in a botanical gardens nestled on the banks of  Sarasota Bay. The setting is absolutely wonderful but the exhibition did not live up to my expectations. There just was not enough material on exhibit to make the trip worth the effort. The exhibition was short and shallow. Visit this if you are in the area.

Orlando Museum of Art -- Louis Dewis: A Belgian Post-Impressionist (January 25 - May 5, 2019)
Coming, as I do, from the world of wine, I am very familiar with the resurrection story wherein a formerly respected indigenous grape variety had fallen into obscurity (through disuse) and is rescued from near-extinction by the timely intervention of an intrepid "savior." Such is the case for Louis Dewis in the art world, a story told in a current Orlando Museum of Art exhibition titled Louis Dewis: A Belgian Post-Impressionist. According to the museum, this exhibit "places Dewis's work in historical context and seeks to reestablish his role in the story of 20th-century French and Belgian art."

Louis Dewis at Work

This is a meaningful exhibition for the Orlando Museum of Art. This is an important story in terms of the quality of the works, the period in which they were produced, and the role that the museum is playing in the rollout. All in all the exhibition was well curated and the story flowed. I wrote about this exhibition here.

Tampa Museum of Art -- Oswaldo Vigas: Transformations (January 31, 2019 - May 27, 2019) 
The Tampa Museum exhibition Oswaldo Vigas Transformations is part of a broader campaign to introduce the works of the Venezuelan artist to an audience beyond his native country and the Latin American arts community. The campaign is spearheaded by a foundation formed by the artist's son and widow for that express purpose.

Oswaldo Vigas was born in 1923 in Valencia, Venezuela, the son of a local doctor. He began painting at the age of 12 but entered Central University of Venezuela to study Pediatrics. His love of art won out, however, and he began to take his calling more seriously. He won the Venezuelan Fine Arts Prize in 1952 and utilized the ticket that was a part of the prize to travel to Paris and enroll in the prestigious École des Beaux Arts.

Oswaldo Vigas is world-class artist with a stellar body of work whose only sin is that he plied his trade in the Southern Hemisphere, beyond the gaze of the art cognoscenti. He painted across a number of styles but I was especially drawn to the fluidity, inventiveness, innovativeness, and color combinations of his figurative work which seemed less hemmed-in and monochromatic than his more abstract pieces.

Polk Museum of Art -- Edgar Degas: The Private Impressionist (Deecember 22 - March 24, 2019)
This exhibition is curated from a private collection and "seeks to shed light not only on the artists favorite themes but also on the complex man himself and the artists he called his friends. Works on paper by Degas' closest friends are included in the exhibition.

This is a dense exhibit and may require a number of visits to cover in its entirety. The works are small and numerous and there is a wealth of detailed notes accompanying each item. I have studied only 1/4 of the items to date.
No photography is allowed at this exhibition. Also, this is the only exhibition covered herein where entry is free.

The Dali -- Magritte and Dali (December 15 - May 19, 2019)
This is a mind-blowing exhibition of 30 or so of the works of these two leading practitioners of their genre. Each object requires careful contemplation in order to ensure that one has teased out every permutation and perturbation of the effort; and then you continue looking back over your shoulder.

In addition to the items on display, the user can interact with with a "cloud room" as well take pictures of themselves in a surrealist landscape. Enjoyed this thoroughly.

Museum of Art - Deland -- Masterpieces of African American Art (January 20 - March 17, 2019)

According to the museum, "A world-class exhibition of more than 85 pieces on view including works from Faith Ringgold, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Purvis Young." The exhibition draws from a collection titled African American Art: We too Dream America and a selection from the museum's permanent collection. The quilts from Faith Ringgold are the mainstays of the exhibition but there are a number of other fine pieces on display.

Faith Ringgold quilts on display at Museum of Art - Deland

The museum staff here is wonderful and helpful and enthusiastic but the exhibition would have been better served by more of a cohesive storyline and more information on the pieces on display. I applaud the museum for bringing this show into town.

©Everythingelse238

Commemoration of the Joust of the Saracen of February 25, 1634

I continue my exploration of the paintings on show at the Ringling Museum of Art Knights exhibition with the backstory on the work titled Commemoration of the Joust of the Saracen of February 25, 1634. It is unclear who authored this work but it is dated as being of the 17th century.

Unknown, Commemoration of the Joust of the Saracen
of February 25, 1634, mid-17th century

The event commemorated by the painting was organized by Cardiinal Antonio Barberini to celebrate his position in the church (he had been appointed Cardinal by Pope Urban VIII in 1628), his family's power (the Barberini family was one of the richest in contemporary Rome), and to honor Prince Alexander Carl Wasa of Poland (who was visiting Rome at the time). The joust would be held in Rome at the Piazza Navona.

Cardinal Antonio Barberini

The Saracen Joust
"The ancient Greek and Romans referred to the nomadic people of Syria and Arabia as Saracens. By the Middle Ages, the term was generally applied by Western Europeans to Muslims and people of Arab descent ..." who were considered enemies during the Crusades.

The Saracen Joust was a "chivalric" tournament wherein knights would charge at a rotating dummy (mounted on a pole) with the intent of striking said dummy with a lance. The dummy generally had the facial features of a Saracen and was equipped with a mace (or lash) in one hand and a shield in the other. Points were awarded based on where the lance struck the dummy with the winner being the person, or team, amassing the most points.

Piazza Navona
Today Piazza Navona is a square that fits exactly into the confines of the ancient Circus Agonales, a 30,000-spectator venue built by Emperor Domitian (between 81 and 96 AD) as a site for gladiatorial games and races. The stadium was built above today's open space but, as was the case for most Roman buildings of that period, fell into disrepair during the Dark Ages and was slowly pillaged by the locals for their own building initiatives.

This pillaging created enough ground-level space to allow for a public market that ran from 1476 onwards. Soon after his ascent to the papacy in the late 17th century, Pope Innocent transformed the the Piazza into the wonderful Baroque edifice that it is today.

Piazza Navona today
(Source: maitaly.files.wordpress.com)

Saracen Joust of February 25, 1634
Six teams of four knights each competed in this tournament. Festivities commenced on Saturday, one week prior to the actual event. The fence for the joust was laid out over a number of days with boxes and stands or the attendees surrounding the course.

The rules of this particular tournament stipulated that the knight had to hit the dummy's head with the lance in order to be awarded points: three points for hitting the dummy in the forehead; two points for hitting in the nasal zone; and one point for a hit below the nose.

According to the historical record, the ladies box was set up across from the dummy with the judges stage opposite. The event took 5 hours to complete.

The Painting
The viewer's perspective is from above -- and slightly off-center -- the action. From this vantage point, the viewer is treated to a sea of orange to the left and grey tones to the right -- team color-like. Brightly colored stands are arrayed on both sides of the course and are packed to the rafters. Horse mounted knights and "officials" are sprinkled around the course.

The focal point of the picture is the two armed knights charging at each other with lances just seconds away from impact. The effort of the horse coming at the user is indicated by the flaring nostrils but its positioning on the canvas would seem to have it crashing into the rails prior to getting to the end of the course. Further, the herald at the end of the line is in danger of being run-over by the mount if it does make it to the end of the course.

Overall the painting gives a sense of closeness and intimacy, almost claustrophobic both in terms of the overall setting and in the spectator stands.

I show two contemporary paintings below to allow some comparison.

Filippo Gagliardi and Andrea Sacchi,
The Saracen Joust in Piazza Navonna, 1656 - 1659

Giovanni Ferri, Saracen Joust in Piazza Navona in the
25th of February, 1634, 17th century

Both of these paintings provide a wider-lens view of the event and show more space between the action and the spectators, relieving the feeling of claustrophobia. The latter of the two also clearly shows a dummy on the rail in the middle of the track rather than the two gal;loping knights depicted in the painting under study. These two paintings clearly show the judges stage, a detail that was not readily apparent in ours.

@Everythingelse238

Frida Kahlo linkages in the National Portrait Gallery's Eye to I exhibition

Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist currently featured in the Brooklyn Museum's Frida Kahlo: Appearances can be Deceiving exhibit, is linked to a number of the artists included in the National Portrait Gallery's (NPGs) exhibition titled Eye to I: Self-Portraits from 1900 to Today. Drawing from the museum's sizable collection of self-portraits, this exhibit "seeks to reassess the significance of self-portraiture in relation to the country's history and culture."

A Frida Kahlo self-portrait was not included in the NPG exhibit but I was able to locate the one below in the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA).

Frida Kahlo
Self-Portrait Dedicated to Leon Trotsky, 1937
Oil on Masonite

The Kahlo self-portrait commemorates the brief affair that she had with Leo Trotsky shortly after his arrival in Mexico in 1937 as well as stipulating her political leanings. The letter in her hand is a dedication to Trotsky which states "with all my love." Kahlo is wearing the distinctive clothing of the Tehuantepec women of southwest Mexico while the staging of the photo draws upon a Mexican vernacular style called retablos.

The Eye to I self-portrait with the most direct link to Kahlo is that of her husband Diego Rivera. The two were first married in 1929. "Theirs was a volatile relationship that underwent marital infidelities, the pressure of Rivera's career, a divorce and remarriage, and Kahlo's deteriorating health" (NMNA).

Diego Rivera
1930
Lithograph

Diego is remembered for his public art and murals in Mexico and the US, probably the most famous of which is the 27-panel fresco Detroit Industry prepared for the Detroit Institute of Arts. According to the notes accompanying the exhibit, "The lively crosshatching strokes used to model the contours of his face relate directly to the technique he employed in his monumental murals."

Nickolas Muray emigrated to the US from his native Hungary in 1913 and by 1920, he was a much-sought-after photographer to the stars. He met Frida Kahlo in 1931 and they became lovers, a relationship which lasted for a decade.

Nickolas Muray
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print

During the Depression years the celebrity business dried up so Muray switched to commercial and advertising work, becoming a color-photography expert in the process. He is shown above with his one-shot color-separation camera.

Louise Nevelson was a sculptor and artist who briefly apprenticed with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo's husband. According to the notes, "... wiry scratches, squiggles, bold black contours, and a red overdrawing compete for attention. The robust features convey her driven personality along with the muscular expression evident in her later sculpture. The double red contours of the face hint at both profile and full-face poses, suggestive of a rotating head, Pablo Picasso's cubism, and multiple-exposure photography.

Louise Nevelson
c. 1938
Ink and watercolor on paper

Pele deLappe met Diego Rivera and, as a result, became a sketching companion of Frida. She studied in New York in the early 1930s but moved back to San Francisco in 1934. Her works reflected the influences of Rivera and another of his friends David Alfara Siqueiros. "Her lithographs of the 1930s had a muralist's sensibility, with simplified compositions, broad planes, low viewpoints, and heroic figural forms."

Pele deLappe
1938
Graphite on paper

The above drawing conveys her beauty and self-assurance framed in the affect of a mural's monumentality.

©Everythingelse238

Oswaldo Vigas: Coming into the light as his country descends into darkness

Two current exhibits at the Orlando and Tampa Museums of Art are both focused on elevating artist profiles. I have written previously on Orlando Museum's exhibit Louis Dewis: The Resurrection of a Belgian Post-Impressionist. The Tampa Museum exhibit Oswaldo Vigas Transformations (January 31, 2019 - May 27, 2019) is part of a broader campaign to introduce the works of the Venezuelan artist to an audience beyond his native country and the Latin American arts community. The campaign is spearheaded by a foundation formed by the artist's son and widow for that express purpose.

Oswaldo Vigas was born in 1923 in Valencia, Venezuela, the son of a local doctor. He began painting at the age of 12 but entered Central University of Venezuela to study Pediatrics. His love of art won out, however, and he began to take his calling more seriously. He won the Venezuelan Fine Arts Prize in 1952 and utilized the ticket that was a part of the prize to travel to Paris and enroll in the prestigious École des Beaux Arts.

Vigas resided in Paris for 12 years and, while there, was an active member of the avant-garde art scene with friends such as Wilfredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo, Max Ernst, and Pablo Picasso. During that time, some of his pieces were a part of a group show at the 1954 inauguration of the Venezuelan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and, in 1962, he was selected to participate in the first exhibition of Latin American art at the Musée d'Art Moderne.

Vigas returned to Venezuela in 1964 and spent the remainder of his life there, continuing to paint, heading up the Art Department of the University of the Andes, and creating a film school. While primarily known for his painting, Vigas branched into sculptures, tapestries, printmaking, and ceramics during the 1970s and 80s.

Oswaldo Vigas

Vigas' art was inspired by:

• Venezuela's pre-Columbian and African cultural patrimony
• European and American modernism
• The great masters of western art, to include Pablo Picasso, Paul Gaugin, and Paul Cézanne.

His styles ranged over Surrealism, Cubism, Figuration, Abstraction, Constructivism, Informalism, and Neo-Figuration. Today his art can be found in private collections as well as in prestigious institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Art Museum of the Americas.

Vigas died in 2014 at the age of 90.

A selection of the paintings included in the exhibit is shown below. In my view, the works done before his travel to Paris is simply stunning. According to the exhibition notes,

Oswaldo Vigas achieved success early in his career with imaginative abstractions and provocative figurative paintings. Depictions of women remained constant throughout his work and appeared as mythical forms in the guise of muses and idols. Vigas' admiration of pre-Columbian artifacts ... inspired his acclaimed series of Bruja (or Witch) paintings. ... This important suite of paintings, with its homage to the past yet anchored in modernism, established Vigas as one of Venezuela's most significant artists in the 1950s.

Composition with Blue Bird, 1942

Composition IV, 1944

Three Figures in Yellow (The Three Graces), 1948

Study for Dancer, 1950

Little Witch, 1951

Infant Witch, 1951

The below paintings "represent Vigas' vested interest in Venezuela's native traditions and landscape."

The curvilinear forms in Yare reference the colorful masks during the Dancing Devils of Yare, a traditional festival held in San Francisco de Yare, Venezuela, during the Feast of Corpus Christi. The Scorpion illustrates Vigas' approach to the organic forms of flora and insects.

Yare, 1952

Vestal, 1953

The Scorpion, 1952

The influence of the circles within which he moved while in Paris is evidenced by his shift away from "narrative figuration to structural compositions of interlocking forms and intersecting linear lines."

Project for Mural in Orange II, 1954

Two Nascent Characters in Yellow, 1953

Project for Mural in Green, 1953

Project for Mural, VI, 1953

Composition in Gray, 1954

His works in the early 1960s were influenced by his exposure to Zen Buddhism:

He filled his canvasses with spontaneous brushwork and layered color to create vibrant textured paintings.

Germination II, 1960

Germination III, 1960

Stone Sky, 1960

Megatú, 1962

Prayer, 1963

Vigas returned to Venezuela in 1964 and his work in those early return years lay at the intersection of figurative and abstract art.

Playfull, 1966

Solar, 1967

Oswaldo working on Solar

In the 1970s he approached figurative abstraction with a new dramatic form:

In his early works, static figures anchored the paintings. Here, the body appears to stretch across the composition as if in motion. ... He used contrasts between light and dark, as well as overlapping oblique shapes, to disrupt the picture plane. The past and present collide in these works as Vigas pays homage to Venezuela's pre-Columbian past and mythologies with a spirited modernist sensibility.

Appeared Blue, 1976

Blue Character, 1975

Oswaldo Vigas is world-class artist with a stellar body of work whose only sin is that he plied his trade in the Southern Hemisphere, beyond the gaze of the art cognoscenti. He painted across a number of styles but I was especially drawn to the fluidity, inventiveness, innovativeness, and color combinations of his figurative work which seemed less hemmed-in and monochromatic than his more abstract pieces.

©EverythingElse238