European Painters in Guatemala

The Portrait and the Regional Landscape

On August 7, I presented a talk at the Academy of Geography and History that illustrates the topic of the Portrait and the Regional Landscape. At the same time, I have been working on an article entitled European Painters in Guatemala / the Encounter of Two Cultures. Both works highlight the importance of the 19th century and its protagonists in the generation of 1910 and the 20th.

But why is the material so dispersed when it exists? The Economic Society of Friends of the Country founded two schools - one of drawing and the other of sculpture - that apparently operated for a good part of the century. It is easier to recover names from the first, although there are not too many works to interpret and from the second there are almost no traces to follow.

The fortuitous arrival of Lorenzo and Francisco Durini to the country, accompanied by a retinue of professionals related to architecture and fine arts in 1883 represented a boost to the visual creation of that time. Ten years later, Antonio Doninelli arrived with another similar team.

As they settled down, they trained local artists who quickly assimilated academic techniques that would open the doors to Europe and Mexico for the generation of 1910: Ernesto Bravo, Agustín Iriarte, Alberto Aguilar Chacón, Rafael Rodríguez, Miguel Ángel Chávez, the late Carlos Valenti and Carlos Mérida, just to mention a few names. This is without mentioning Federico Schaefer or Carmen de Pettersen who returned to Guatemala in the 1920s.

The First World War brought back the artists who were studying in Spain, Paris and Italy. Mérida surprised with his synthetic paintings that included portraits of indigenous people and sublimated landscapes. It was at that time that Alfredo Gálvez Suárez absorbed this new figuration and from 1920 onwards, emerging artists became interested in the subject. This second decade was defined by the founding of ENAP and with it, its exhibition hall.

That decade of the 20s, then, is the one that brings topics and variants related to the interior of the country and proposes artists such as Antonia Matos, Ovidio Rodas Corzo, Salvador Saravia, Valentín Abascal, Jaime Arimany (who would soon after study at the Academy of San Carlos), Hilary Arathoon, among several others, which would be led by Humberto Garavito who, in 1927, joined the trends in vogue.

They paint a replica of a symbolic mural
Text: Narcy Vásquez
Photos: Mario León

On the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Guatemalan artist Roberto González Goyri, which is celebrated on November 20, several exhibitions and talks have been organized, among other activities, to celebrate it.

The Municipal Cultural Center, in collaboration with the Roberto González Goyri Association for Culture, joined together to create a new version of the mural Guatemalan Nationality, which will be created on 7th Street. Avenue between 13th Street and 13th Street A, Zone 1, which is part of the Goyri: New Perspectives Exhibition. The original was unveiled in 1959, at the central offices of the Guatemalan Social Security Institute (IGSS) and recounts historical events: Revolution, independence, Western education, arrival of the Spanish and Catholicism, Pre-Columbian Paradise from the hand to the tree and Discovery of corn.
Simply Goyri (1924 – 2007)

He is considered one of the greatest exponents of the generation of 40, a movement that impacted the panorama of the visual arts by opening a gap in modern art of the 20th century in
Guatemala.

Among his public works are: the murals of the IGSS, the west facade of the Bank of Guatemala, the east facade of the National Mortgage Credit. These are located in the Civic Center and were declared Cultural Heritage of the Nation, according to Ministerial Agreement 189-2014. In sculpture and painting he created several pieces, most of which are found in institutions and private collections. According to experts, his work was characterized by being essentially semi-figurative; that is, it always took into account a process of abstraction.

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