Guayasamin fidel castro biography

May 6, 2020, marked 59 years since Ecuadorian master painter and sculptor Oswaldo Guayasamín created the first of four oil painting portraits of Fidel Castro.

Radio Havana Cuba journalist Pedro Martínez Pírez made that first Havana encounter between Fidel and Guayasamín possible -- the beginning of a close friendship between the Cuban revolutionary leader and the painter of Ibero-America that lasted until Guayasamín’s death on March 10th, 1999.

In statements to Cuban press, Pablo Guayasamín, son of the Ecuadorian master painter and sculptor, said that unfortunately that first portrait of Fidel was lost, and is only known from photographs, although the story of Guayasamín's arrival in Havana and Fidel's posing on May 6, at the headquarters of the Cuban Friendship Institute is well documented.

The President of the Oswaldo Guayasamin Foundation recalled that over 38 years of friendship Guayasamín created three other portraits of Fidel, the originals of which are well-preserved and treasured here in Cuba.

In 2002, three years after his death, Guayasamín's masterwork, La Capilla del Hombre ("The Chapel of Man"), was completed and opened to the public.

Fidel Castro attended the opening ceremony in Quito, Ecuador, on November 29th, 2002. In his remarks, Fidel said: ‘Guayasamin was perhaps the most noble, transparent and humane person I have ever met. He painted with the speed of light and his dimension, as a human being, was boundless.’

He was born on July 6, 1919, in Quito, Ecuador. He was the eldest of 10 siblings, children of a humble family. His father was a tractor driver and then a cab driver, his mother died quite young. At the age of seven he already imprints his artistic vocation and paints his first works, striving to find his own language.

In 1932 he entered the School of Fine Arts and there he also clashes with the molds and traditions; soon he is the first student and at the same time the best teacher, and his paintings have an impact on everyone who sees them.

His first encounter with the cruelty of life, the scourge of violence and the injustice of murder, which fills his heart with anger and rebellion, is captured in the painting entitled “Los Niños Muertos” (The Dead Children), which depicts the brutal scene of a group of corpses piled up in a Quito street, including a boy from his neighborhood, his best friend, killed by a stray bullet. Since then, he has taken a stand against the cruelties and injustices of a society that discriminates against the poor, the Indians, the blacks and the weak. It militates in the causes of solidarity with the oppressed peoples, in the struggle for Latin American integration, against dictatorships, against the abuses and aggressions of the powerful and imperialist countries; for peace.

In 1941 he graduated from the School of Fine Arts and two years later he won the “Salón Mariano Aguilera”; the first important prize of his life, then the Grand Prize of the III Biennial of Barcelona, Spain (1955-1956), the First Prize of the Biennial of Sao Paulo (1957).

He made a trip between 1944 and 1945 from Mexico to Patagonia where he made notes and drawings of what would be his first series of 103 paintings, called “HUACAYÑAN” 1948 – 1960, which in Quichua (one of the aboriginal languages of Ecuador), means “Way of Crying”. Throughout his life he traveled to various places in the w

Ecuadorian painter

Oswaldo Guayasamín Calero (July 6, 1919 – March 10, 1999) was an Ecuadorian painter and sculptor of Kichwa and Mestizo heritage.

Biography

Early life

Guayasamín was born in Quito, Ecuador, to a native father and a Mestiza mother, both of Kichwa descent. His family was poor and his father worked as a carpenter for most of his life. Oswaldo Guayasamín later worked as a taxi and truck driver. He was the eldest of ten children in his family. When he was young, he enjoyed drawing caricatures of his teachers and the children that he played with. He showed an early love for art. He created a Pan-American art of human and social inequalities which achieved international recognition.

He graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Quito as a painter and sculptor. He also studied architecture there. He held his first exhibition when he was 23, in 1942. While he was attending college, his best friend died during a demonstration in Quito. This incident would later inspire one of his paintings, Los Niños Muertos (The Dead Children). This event also helped him to form his vision about the people and the society that he lived in.

Career

Guayasamín started painting from the time he was six years old. He loved to draw from that age. Starting from watercolors and transforming all the way through to his signature humanity pieces, his art career had many highlights. Although tragedy molded Guayasamín's work, it was his friend's death that inspired him to paint powerful symbols of truth in society and injustices around him. While his interest was seldom with his school work, he began selling his art before the time that he could even read. After his attendance at the School of Fine Arts in Quito, his career took off.

La Galería Caspicara, an art gallery opened by Eduardo Kingman in 1940, was one of the first places that Guayasamín was featured. His themes of oppression in the lower social classes al

Excerpts of speech by Fidel during the inauguration of Guayasamín’s Chapel of man, Quito, Ecuador, November 29, 2002:
I remember the time very early in the Cuban Revolution, when, amidst hectic days, a man with an indigenous, tenacious, restless face, already well known and admired by many of our intellectuals, wanted to paint a portrait of me.

For the first time I was subjected to the torturous task. I was obliged to stand still, exactly as he said. I did not know if it would last an hour or a century…
I was in the presence of a no less than a great teacher and an exceptional person, who I would later come to know with ever-increasing admiration and deep affection: Oswaldo Guayasamín. He would have been around 42 years old at that time…

Guayasamín was perhaps the most noble and human person I ever met. He created at the speed of light, and his dimensions as a human being knew no limits…

I learned a great deal from my conversations with him.They enriched my conscience regarding the terrible drama of conquest, colonization, genocide and injustices committed against the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere: a lacerating pain that he carried among his deepest feelings. He was very knowledgeable about the history of that drama…

None of this escaped the profound thought, warmth and sense of human dignity of Oswaldo Guayasamín. He devoted his art and his life to building consciousness, denouncing, combating, and fighting these injustices.

(Granma)