Oswaldo was the first of ten children; 2 His father José Miguel Guayasamín was of indigenous origin, he worked as a carpenter and later as a taxi driver and truck driver, and his mother Dolores Calero was mestizo and had a grocery and candy store that she prepared herself.
His artistic attitude awakened at an early age. Before he was eight years old he made caricatures of his teachers and classmates at school. Every week he renewed the advertisements for the store opened by his mother. He also sold some paintings made on pieces of canvas and cardboard, with landscapes and portraits of movie stars, in the Plaza de la Independencia. Despite his father's opposition, he entered the Quito School of Fine Arts. It is the time of the Four Day War, a civic-military uprising against Neptalí Bonifaz in 1932. During a demonstration, his best friend, a boy named Manjarrés, dies. This event, which would later inspire his work «The Dead Children», marks his vision of people, injustices and society. He continued his studies at the School and in 1942 graduated as a sculptor and painter. In 1942 he exhibited for the first time at the age of 23 in a private room in Quito and caused a scandal. Critics consider this exhibition as a confrontation with the official exhibition of the School of Fine Arts. Nelson Rockefeller, impressed by the work, bought several paintings and arranged an invitation from the United States Department of State to Guayasamín to visit the great museums, and see for the first time the work of the great masters of painting in person. Between 1942 and 1943 he stayed six months in the United States. With the money earned, he travels to Mexico, where he meets Maestro Orozco, who accepts Guayasamín as an assistant in the realization of a fresco mural. White coffin (1946), oil on cardboard. MuNa, Quito. He also became friends with Pablo Neruda and a year later he traveled to various Latin American countries (from Mexico to Patagonia), including Peru, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, finding in all of them an oppressed indigenous society, a theme that he picks up in sketches that would later form “Huacayñan”, his first large series of paintings. In his later figurative paintings he deals with social themes; he acted by simplifying the forms. In his youth he obtained all the national awards and was the recipient, at the age of 36, of the grand prize at the III Hispano-American Art Biennial, which took place in 1955 in Barcelona3 and later the grand prize at the Sao Paulo Biennial. He was elected president of the House of Ecuadorian Culture in 1971. His works have been exhibited in the best galleries in the world: Venezuela, France, Mexico, Cuba, Italy, Spain, United States, Brazil, Colombia, Soviet Union, China, among others. Others. In 1976 he created the Guayasamín Foundation, in Quito, to which he donated his work and his art collections, since he conceives art as a people's heritage. In 1978 he was named member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, and a year later, honorary member of the Italian Academy of Arts. In 1982, a 120-meter mural painted by Guayasamín was inaugurated at the Barajas Airport. This large mural, made with acrylics and marble dust, is divided into two parts: one of them dedicated to Spain and the other to Latin America. The Image of the Homeland It is probably one of his most important murals since it is found in the National Assembly of Ecuador, decorating one of its chambers. There he represents several figures in the history of Ecuador such as Vicente Rocafuerte, Eugenio Espejo, Juan Montalvo, Dolores Cacuango, Manuela Sáenz, Manuela Cañizares, Eloy Alfaro, among other people. It also has several phrases such as «Opinions are not erased with fire» by José Mejía Lequerica. He also shows support for the union of the countries of Latin America, citing Bolívar's phrase: «To form a single nation from the entire new world. » He values the opposition to the dictatorship with the famous phrase of Juan Montalvo: «Unfortunate of the people where the young people are humble with the tyrant. » It negatively represents, using cold colors that contrast with the warm tone of the mural, foreign intervention (represented by the cia), the church (through a Jesuit priest), militarism, oligarchy and populism (through a face that has similarities to that of Velasco Ibarra). In the center are two hands leading to an eight-pointed star crowned by a condor. It was inaugurated on August 5.1988. Guayasamín was a personal friend of important people in the world and portrayed some of them, such as Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro, Paco de Lucía, François and Danielle Mitterrand, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel García Márquez, Rigoberta Menchú, Mercedes Sosa, King Juan Carlos of Spain and Princess Carolina of Monaco, José Camón Aznar, etc. He also portrayed some famous men and women, such as Silvia Pinal, Toty Rodríguez, Silvio Rodríguez, etc. He received several official decorations and honorary doctorates from universities in America and Europe. In 1992 he received the Eugenio Espejo award, the highest cultural award granted by the government of Ecuador. Starting in 1995, he began his most important work in Quito, the architectural space called La Capilla del Hombre, to which he dedicated all his efforts. He died on March 10.1999, due to an acute myocardial infarction, in Baltimore (United States), even without seeing this project completed. That same year his work was recognized, posthumously, with the recognition as a Painter of Ibero-America, the José Martí International Prize. 4
Coastal Landscape - Oswaldo Guayasamín 1948
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