Latin American/Caribbean Art

(b Montevideo, Jul 1, 1894; d Montevideo, Apr 11, 1948).

Uruguayan architect, teacher, and writer. He qualified as an architect in 1915 and two years later began teaching architecture. From 1921 to 1924 he was in Europe on a university scholarship and was exposed to Hispano-Islamic culture. This influenced the houses that he designed between 1925 and 1927 and one that he built for himself in 1930; the latter displays a combination of Modern Movement principles, Florentine Renaissance architecture (seen in the overall shaping of masses and the decorative treatment of the façades), and Vilamajó’s fondness for the Islamic tradition, which is evident in his handling of vegetation, light, and water and in the subtle gradation of external spaces.

Despite his receptiveness to a variety of influences, he created some highly original works, notably the annex to the Americana Café (1914), Montevideo; the Facultad de Ingeniería (begun 1937), Universidad de Montevideo; and the Villa Serrana resort center (completed ...

(b La Plata, May 16, 1889; d Buenos Aires, April 7, 1966).

Argentine engineer and architect. He graduated as a civil engineer from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1914 and then worked for an oil company in Patagonia (1918–20) and, throughout the 1920s, as a land surveyor. He helped with the studies for Le Corbusier’s master-plan Les Grands Travaux de Buenos Aires (1929; unexecuted). Vilar subsequently established a large practice in collaboration with his brother Carlos Vilar, and he was among the early proponents of Rationalism and internationalism in Argentina. His early works include a minimal housing system first used at the former premises of the Hindu Club (1931; destr.) at Don Torcuato in Buenos Aires province; several large blocks of flats, such as those for the Nordiska Kompaniet (1935; altered) and those on the Avenida Libertador (1935), both in Buenos Aires; the Banco Holandés Unido (1935; altered), Buenos Aires; and a series of private houses at San Isidro, the most notable (...

(b Barcelona, Nov 15, 1812; d Mexico City, Nov 25, 1860).

Catalan sculptor and teacher, active in Mexico. He studied at the Escuela de Nobles Artes (Llotja) in Barcelona under Damián Campeny and from 1834 on a scholarship in Rome under Antonio Solá at the Accademia di San Luca. He also attended the studios of Bertel Thorvaldsen and Pietro Tenerani in Rome. He adhered to the aesthetic doctrines of purism, and professed an admiration for the Italian “primitives” of the 13th to 15th centuries. In 1846, with his friend Pelegrín Clavé, Vilar accepted the Mexican government’s invitation to reorganize the departments of sculpture and painting at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City. They restructured the curriculum and between 1849 and 1858 mounted regular art exhibitions, to which teachers, students, and artists independent of the academy contributed their works. The interest generated raised art criticism in Mexico to a professional level. (The Civil War, started over the antagonism between the conservative and liberal parties, interrupted these annual expositions; in ...

(b Mexico City, Sept 22, 1901; d Mexico City, June 10, 1982).

Mexican architect, teacher and theorist. He graduated in 1923 from the Academia de S Carlos, Mexico City. There his teachers, many of whose professional careers had coincided with the dictatorial regime (1876–1910) of General Porfirio Díaz, emphasized the virtues of nationalism and modernity in architecture. At the time of Villagrán’s graduation, however, the Mexican Revolution had just ended, and the great transformation of the country’s social life was just beginning, in which architecture was to play an important part through the provision of an infrastructure of schools and hospitals as well as low-cost housing. It was in the medical field that Villagrán began his career, designing the Instituto de Higiene y Granja Sanitaria (1925–7) in Mexico City, which in the shape of its isolated pavilions represented a break with the architecture of the past. The hospital was also carefully planned to meet the specific clinical demands of the medical advisers who acted as architectural consultants. The result was a synthesis of the aesthetic and the functional that was emblematic of the ‘integralism’ of ...

(b Mexico City, c. 1644; d Mexico City, 1714).

Mexican painter. He worked in a decorative Baroque style, based on the primacy of light and colour over accuracy of form. In 1675 he painted the altarpiece of the church of S Rosa de Lima, Huaquechula, Puebla, and subsequently worked until 1681 on the altarpiece of the church of S Rosa de Lima, Azcapotzalco. On several occasions between 1683 and 1686 he produced paintings for Mexico City Cathedral, including the Apotheosis of St Michael, the Woman of the Apocalypse, the Church Militant and Triumphant and the Triumph of the Eucharist (all in situ). In 1686 he worked on the triumphal arch dedicated to the Conde de la Monclova, Melchor Portocarrero and Lasso de la Vega. This was followed by the Apotheosis of the Eucharist in the Cúpula de los Reyes, Puebla Cathedral, and a new version of the Church Militant and Triumphant for Guadalajara Cathedral. In 1691 Villalpando painted a series on the ...

(b Croydon, Surrey, May 30, 1900; d Caracas, Aug 16, 1975).

Venezuelan architect and teacher, of English birth. His father, Carlos Antonio Villanueva, was a diplomat and author of several history books about South America. His mother, Paulina Astoul de Villanueva, was French and was his link with the culture and life of Europe, where he spent his early life. In 1920 he began to study architecture with Gabriel Héraud at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, from which he graduated in 1928; he then went on to study at the Institut d’Urbanisme, University of Paris. In 1929 he returned to Venezuela and settled in Caracas, where he established his own architectural practice. This long stay in Europe marked his professional and personal life; his subsequent approach to architecture was inspired by his European background, and he even spoke his mother tongue, Spanish, with a strong French accent. At the same time, however, he was deeply interested in both the traditional architecture of Venezuela and its constraints, such as the brilliant light and tropical climate....

(b La Paz, Nov 28, 1884; d La Paz, May 14, 1970).

Bolivian engineer, architect, urban planner and writer. He qualified as an engineer in Chile in 1907, pursued an academic career to become Dean of the Faculty of Science and Rector of the Universidad Boliviana Mayor de ‘San Andrés’, La Paz, and served as Minister for Education after World War I. In 1943 he founded the School of Architecture in the Universidad de La Paz, the first in Bolivia other than the short-lived school begun by Philippe Bertrés and José Núñez del Prado in the 1830s. Brought up in the aura of French academicism, Villanueva produced buildings in the 1920s and 1930s in that style; the Banco Central de Bolivia (1926), La Paz, is an example. Buildings such as his Alcadía Municipal (1925), La Paz, with its 17th-century French influence, and the Hospital General (1916–25), in the Miraflores district of La Paz, however, show greater eclecticism. Thereafter Villanueva worked towards a national architecture based on the ancient Pre-Columbian culture of Tiahuanaco, of which the monolithic architecture and characteristic sculpture inspired his Stadium in La Paz (...

(b Veracruz, 1848; d Tacubaya, Mexico City, Feb 14, 1904).

Mexican illustrator and lithographer. He began his career in 1869, making prints for the weekly La ilustración potosina in San Luis Potosí. He collaborated with Alejandro Casarín and Jesús Alamilla on illustrations using engravings coloured with pen for the novel Ensalada de pollos by José Tomás de Cuéllar. In these the use of a schematic design accentuated the appearance of the figures portrayed. He created caricatures (1872–3) for La orquesta and other periodicals, but he established his reputation with caricatures (1874–6) of government figures for the weekly Hijo Ahuizote. Villasana was a member of the political party of President Porfirio Díaz and in 1880 published ferocious caricatures of Díaz’s opponents in El coyote emplumado. He was co-publisher in 1883, with Ireneo Paz, of La patria ilustrada and in 1888 he founded his own weekly, México y sus costumbres; in both periodicals he published his own caricatures of public figures. In ...

(b La Plata [now Sucre], 1822; d Sucre, after 1888).

Bolivian painter. It is possible he was taught painting by Manuel Ugalde. He went to France to improve his skills, and in 1856 he was in Paris. His known works date from 1844 to 1866. He was active mainly in Sucre, although he also worked in Potosí and La Paz. He painted in various genres, but his work mainly consists of official portraits of presidents and national and regional dignitaries such as Simon Bolívar (U. Sucre, Mus. Charcas), General José Ballivián (1844; La Paz, Alcaldía) and Mariano Melgarejo (1866; Potosí, Mus. N. Casa Moneda). Villavicencio’s style was sober and academic, but his portraits, landscapes and allegories have documentary value as a record of painting in the country after the long period of mestizo art.

(b Pomabamba, Ancash, 1928).

Peruvian painter, active in Colombia. He studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Lima until 1950 and then at the fine arts faculty of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá, where he then settled. His work was initially figurative, but it developed towards a more abstract style, blending references to Pre-Columbian textile art and colonial art in largely monochromatic, textured paintings. Figurative elements later re-emerged in symbolic, Baroque-inspired compositions that evoke the works of Lucas Cranach, Dürer or Niklaus Deutsch, and in drawings that similarly look to European rather than Andean traditions (e.g. Knight of the Thistle, 1978; priv. col.; see Fraser and Baddeley, pl. 14). In the 1980s his work increasingly contained mythological and symbolic elements (e.g. Masked Nobleman, 1986; priv. col.; see Fraser and Baddeley, p. 76).

(b Arequipa, April 22, 1900; d Arequipa, July 15, 1931).

Peruvian painter and illustrator. He first exhibited in Arequipa in 1917 after leaving school, and in 1918 he went to Lima, where he was influenced most notably by the work of the Peruvian painter Daniel Hernández, who from 1919 to 1924 taught him at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes. After working as an art critic for the newspaper El Comercio and contributing as a caricaturist to the magazines Mundial and Variedades, in 1925 he began teaching at the Escuela Nacional. Vinatea Reinoso’s caricatures were rarely rebellious or anarchic but reflected the gentle satire typical of the work of Pancho Fierro. His painting, which pioneered Peruvian Indigenism, was influenced by the work of the French Impressionists and by the other leading Indigenist painter, José Sabogal, although Vinatea Reinoso used more complex perspectives and structures than many Indigenists. His colours were generally subdued and were applied with fragmentary brushstrokes, giving a somewhat unfinished appearance to his works (e.g. ...

(b Buenos Aires, 1892; d Buenos Aires, 1978).

Argentine architect. From the age of 15 he attended the school of architecture set up in 1901 by Alejandro Christophersen in the Universidad de Buenos Aires, where his final projects revealed a challenge to prevailing academic attitudes that continued throughout a successful professional career. Virasoro acknowledged the influence upon his work of Léon Bakst’s stage designs for the Diaghilev ballet, which visited Buenos Aires after World War I, and of Matila Ghyka’s early books on the theories of mathematical proportion: Esthétique des proportions (Paris, 1927) and Le Nombre d’or (Paris, 1931). In line with the populist reforms of the 1920s, Virasoro adopted high standards of performance and provided good facilities for employees in his design and construction organization, for which he adopted the motto Viribus Unitis. Although the change to right-wing government in 1930 caused the collapse of Virasoro’s practice, he is regarded as one of the pioneers of the ...

(d’Angelo )

(b Salerno, July 30, 1866; d Rio de Janeiro, Oct 15, 1944).

Brazilian painter and decorative artist, of Italian birth. He was taken as an infant from Italy to Rio de Janeiro. In 1884 he began studying in Rio de Janeiro at the Academia Imperial das Belas Artes and the Liceu Imperial de Artes e Ofícios under Victor Meirelles de Lima, Henrique Bernardelli (1837–1946) and Rodolfo Amoedo (1857–1941). He was active in efforts to eliminate the academy’s rigid academic discipline. He went to Paris in 1892 and attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, where he was taught by Eugène-Samuel Grasset. At the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, Visconti won a silver medal for the paintings Youth (1898) and Dance of the Wood Nymphs (1899; both Rio de Janeiro, Mus. N. B.A.). Following the Pre-Raphaelites, his main influences were Botticelli and other painters of the Italian Renaissance, but he was also affected by Grasset and Art Nouveau. On his return to Brazil, among the works exhibited in ...