Latin American Artists in Their Studios - Hardcover

Colle, Marie-Pierre

9780865659575: Latin American Artists in Their Studios

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865659575 ISBN 13: 9780865659575

Publisher: Vendome Pr, 1995

Latin American Artists in their Studios is a fascinating introduction to the magical and mysterious world of fifteen giants of Latin American art in the second half of the twentieth century: Jacobo Borges, Fernando Botero, Claudio Bravo, Augustin Cardenas, Leonora Carrington, Sergio de Castro, Gunther Gerzso, Matta, Armando Morales, Antonio Segui, Jesus Rafael Soto, Fernando de Szyszlo, Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo, and Cordelia Urueta.
Many of these artists have remained in Latin America, others are scattered throughout the world. Some are in Paris, Claudio Bravo lives in a magnificent villa in Tangiers, Botero shuttles between houses and studios in New York, Paris, Pietrasanta and Bogota. What they all have in common, as Carlos Fuentes points out in his brilliant introduction, is a shared culture descended from Indian, African and European sources, a culture that extends from the Rio Grande to Patagonia, but that now spills over to the United States and also sails back to recognize Spain. Even if these painters and sculptors have attempted to remove themselves from the nationalist boundaries often imposed on the Latin American creator, they all share a way of looking at Western culture. They also all yearn for a universality that embraces their Mediterranean, Greek and Roman, Jewish and Arab heritages, enriching these with the Indian, Black African, and mulatto experiences of form and color, light and shadow, the bliss and horror of the Americas.
Marie-Pierre Colle travelled wherever these artists have their studios and, with a particularly discerning eye, inspired a team of photographers to search out the most telling details of their life and work. Her text is based on astonishingly revealing interviews that substitute art criticism with explanations from the artists themselves. Her questions are as sharp as her eye; the result is a priceless record of the creative process and of a highly respected segment of contemporary art history.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Colombian painter Fernando Botero, one of the 15 artists interviewed in these informal, ingratiating profiles, sets a keynote when he urges Latin American artists to explore their roots and to take their whole continent as a theme, instead of blending into the international movement. A pre-Columbian influence pervades Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo's coloristic meditations on the human form and the cosmos and the Argentine Antonio Segui's figurative expressionist canvases. Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta draws inspiration from Mayan conceptions of the shape and architecture of the universe, while the Mexican Francisco Toledo celebrates the cycles that unite us with Earth in myth-drenched frescoes, graphics, ceramics and sculpture. There is much diversity here, from the Chilean Claudio Bravo's classic religious allegories to the Venezuelan Jesus Rafael Soto's abstract paintings and kinetic sculpture. Former House & Garden editor Colle, who lives in Mexico, wrote Frida's Fiestas.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

This appeared some months ago and was only just received, but deserves ongoing mention as an extraordinary survey of Latin American artists and their works in the second half of the 20th century. Colle travelled to the artists' studios: her text is based on interviews with the artists and accompanies a diverse selection of excellent full-page color reproductions of each artist's achievements. -- Midwest Book Review

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