Lot Essay
This painting was awarded the first prize at the 1967 Sao Paulo Biennial
Alejandro Obregón is one of the foremost modern painters of Colombia. Born in Barcelona to a Catalan mother and a Colombian father, his earliest training took place in Boston and Barcelona. Given this fact, a global outlook is inevitably manifested in his art which, in its mature years, combined elements of both a latter-day Cubism as well as international abstraction. His work of the 1950s was sobre and low-key in so far as the palette was concerned, displaying the inspiration of late Braque, among other European masters. As the 1960s approached, Obregón appeared to liberate both his colors as well as his hand, producing paintings of brilliant, bravura application of the pigment. As Eduardo Serrano has observed: "Obregón would finally develop a style ever more foreign to Cubism, replacing its severity with the exuberant colors of the Caribbean and its analytic coldness with creative spontaneity.
'Icaro y las Avispas' ('Icarus and the Bees') is signed and dated 1966. It is a major monument of this painter's work of that decade. This is something of an experimental piece, given that the canvas was done in a moment when Obregón was incorporating bright colors into his palette. Here, however, Obregón relies on black and yellow alone, with a few touches of mauve to relieve the intensity of those two tones. "Icaro y las Avispas" is an image in which the viewer inevitably senses the weight of the type of dramatic expressiveness that is seen in the art of the members of the New York School (Still, De Kooning and others) as well as in that of many Latin American artists. In order to understand its position in Latin American art of the time, we might place Obregón's work alongside the abstract or semi-abstract compositions of such painters as the Mexican Lilia Carrillo , the Argentine Jorge de la Vega or the Venezuelan Jacobo Borges, all of whom were participating in the project of the internationalization of Latin American painting in the 1960s. With regard to Colombian art, Obregón obviously shares an interest in dynamic movement and vigorous brush work with Fernando Botero, who in the late 50s and early 60s, was creating paintings in which he combined his characteristic interest in rounded, sensuous figures with the aggressive and forceful application of the medium that he so much admired in the work of the North American Abstract Expressionists.
Edward J. Sullivan
New York, March 1996
Alejandro Obregón is one of the foremost modern painters of Colombia. Born in Barcelona to a Catalan mother and a Colombian father, his earliest training took place in Boston and Barcelona. Given this fact, a global outlook is inevitably manifested in his art which, in its mature years, combined elements of both a latter-day Cubism as well as international abstraction. His work of the 1950s was sobre and low-key in so far as the palette was concerned, displaying the inspiration of late Braque, among other European masters. As the 1960s approached, Obregón appeared to liberate both his colors as well as his hand, producing paintings of brilliant, bravura application of the pigment. As Eduardo Serrano has observed: "Obregón would finally develop a style ever more foreign to Cubism, replacing its severity with the exuberant colors of the Caribbean and its analytic coldness with creative spontaneity.
'Icaro y las Avispas' ('Icarus and the Bees') is signed and dated 1966. It is a major monument of this painter's work of that decade. This is something of an experimental piece, given that the canvas was done in a moment when Obregón was incorporating bright colors into his palette. Here, however, Obregón relies on black and yellow alone, with a few touches of mauve to relieve the intensity of those two tones. "Icaro y las Avispas" is an image in which the viewer inevitably senses the weight of the type of dramatic expressiveness that is seen in the art of the members of the New York School (Still, De Kooning and others) as well as in that of many Latin American artists. In order to understand its position in Latin American art of the time, we might place Obregón's work alongside the abstract or semi-abstract compositions of such painters as the Mexican Lilia Carrillo , the Argentine Jorge de la Vega or the Venezuelan Jacobo Borges, all of whom were participating in the project of the internationalization of Latin American painting in the 1960s. With regard to Colombian art, Obregón obviously shares an interest in dynamic movement and vigorous brush work with Fernando Botero, who in the late 50s and early 60s, was creating paintings in which he combined his characteristic interest in rounded, sensuous figures with the aggressive and forceful application of the medium that he so much admired in the work of the North American Abstract Expressionists.
Edward J. Sullivan
New York, March 1996