#hispanicheritagemonthspotlight

[efeliciano]

Day 28 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is: José Sabogal (Cajabamba, March 19, 1888 – Lima, December 15, 1956) was a Peruvian painter and muralist who was the most renowned early supporter of and a leader in the artistic indigenist movement of his country. Sabogal helped define the Peruvian identity and catapulted Peruvian art to an international audience. Although Sabogal's own descent was Spanish rather than indigenous, he promoted pre-Columbian culture and esthetics. A six month stay in Cuzco prompted his indigenism. He took an interest in depicting the city and its inhabitants. In 1919 his Cuzco paintings attracted attention at an exhibition in Lima. He died at 68 years of age in Lima on December 15, 1956. #hispanicheritagemonth #josesabogal #peru #artist

[efeliciano]

Day 27 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is Arturo Michelena: Francisco Arturo Michelena Castillo (16 June 1863  – 29 July 1898) was a Venezuelan painter born in Valencia, Carabobo State. He began to paint at a young age under his father's tutelage. Michelena traveled to Paris where he studied in the famous Académie Julian. He was the first Venezuelan artist to succeed overseas and, with Cristóbal Rojas (1857–1890) and Martín Tovar y Tovar (1827–1902), one of the most important Venezuelan painters of the 19th century. His first great success occurred in Paris at Le Salon des Artistes Français in 1887. Michelena presented a canvas titled L'Enfant Malade (The sick boy) which was awarded the Gold Medal, second class, the highest honor a foreign artist could receive at the salon. The painting was quickly considered a masterpiece and was acquired by the Astors in New York in the late 19th century. Later the painting traveled to South Florida when it was acquired by Owens Burns, a business partner of John Ringling, the circus magnate. After Burns' death the painting was stored in the Ringling Museum's vaults where it remained away from public view for more than 60 years. In 2004 Sotheby's rescued the canvas and arranged for it to be included in an auction of Latin American art. The painting was sold for the record amount of $1,350,000. #hispanicheritagemonth #arturomichelena #venezuela #artist #art

[efeliciano]

Day 26 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is: Delesio Antonio Berni (14 May 1905 - 13 October 1981) was an Argentine figurative artist. He is associated with the movement known as Nuevo Realismo ("New Realism"), a Latin American extension of social realism. His work, including a series of Juanito Laguna collages depicting poverty and the effects of industrialization in Buenos Aires, has been exhibited around the world. In 1931, while living on a farm and working as a municipal employee, Berni witnessed labor demonstrations and the miserable effects of unemployment and was shocked by the news of a military coup d'état in Buenos Aires. In 1933, he began painting realistic images that depicted the struggles and tensions of the Argentine people. His most popular Nuevo Realismo paintings include Desocupados (The Unemployed) and Manifestación (Manifestation). Berni's post-1950s work can be viewed as "a synthesis of Pop Art and Social realism." In 1958 he began collecting and collaging discarded material to create a series of works featuring a character named Juanito Laguna. featuring a character named Juanito Laguna. The series became a social narrative on industrialization and poverty and pointed out the extreme disparities existing between the wealthy Argentine aristocracy and the "Juanitos” of the slums. After a March 1976 coup Berni moved to New York City where he continued painting, engraving, collaging, and exhibiting. New York struck him as luxurious, consumerist, materially wealthy, and spiritually poor. He conveyed these observations in subsequent work with a touch of social irony. His New York paintings display a great protagonism of color. Antonio Berni died on October 13, 1981 in Buenos Aires where he had been working on a Martin Fierro monument. #hispanticheritagemonth #antonioberni #nuevorealismo #art

[efeliciano]

Day 25 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is: Pedro Pietri (March 21, 1944 – March 3, 2004) was a Nuyorican poet and playwright and a founder of the Nuyorican Movement. He was the poet laureate of the Nuyorican Movement. Pietri was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. In 1947 his family moved to New York City. After graduating high school, Pietri was drafted into the Army and sent to fight in the Vietnam War. The experiences that he faced in the Army and Vietnam, plus the discrimination that he witnessed while growing up in New York, were to become the main factors that would forge his personality and style of poetry. Upon his discharge from the Army, Pietri affiliated himself with the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican Civil Rights activist group which was founded in Chicago, IL. In 1969, he read for the first time his poem, "Puerto Rican Obituary.” "Puerto Rican Obituary" is an epic poem published in 1973 and widely considered Pietri's greatest work. Pietri helped found the Nuyorican Movement together with Miguel Piñero and Miguel Algarín, founders of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. The Café is an institution where many New York Puerto Rican and Latino artists perform. Pietri not only wrote poetry but also recorded it. In 1979, Pietri came out with an LP entitled Loose Joints and later One Is a Crowd. Pietri was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2003. He went to Mexico to receive an alternative treatment for a year. On March 3, 2004, Pietri died en route from Mexico to New York. #hispanicheritagemonth #pedropietri #nuyorican #nuyoricanpoetscafe

[efeliciano]

Day 23 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is Violeta Parra: Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (4 October 1917 – 5 February 1967) was a Chilean composer, songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist. She pioneered the "Chilean New Song," the Nueva Canción Chilena, a renewal and a reinvention of Chilean folk music which would extend its sphere of influence outside Chile, becoming acknowledged as "The Mother of Latin American Folk.” In 2011 Andrés Wood directed a biopic about her, titled Violeta Went to Heaven. Parra was born to a large, poor family in the small town of San Carlos in the southern province of Ñuble. Her father, a music teacher, taught all of his children how to sing and play various instruments, especially the guitar. She started writing songs at an early age, initially performing at bars, small ballrooms, and circuses. In 1952, encouraged by her brother poet Nicanor Parra, she travelled throughout Chile to record the breadth of Chilean folk music. Her exposure to that music served as her inspiration for Nueva Canción, and her work began to synthesize Chilean folk traditions and her growing concern for social conditions. In 1954, having been awarded what was referred to as the "Chilean Oscar" at the Caupolicán Theatre for her music. She popularized her music as she travelled throughout the Soviet Union and Europe. Parra strongly supported Salvador Allende’s early bids for the Chilean presidency, and Parra maintained ties with members of Chile’s socialist and communist parties. She committed suicide at age 49 while living in a tent on the outskirts of Santiago. #hispanicheritagemonth #violetaparra #chile #latinos

[efeliciano]

Day 21 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is: Eloísa Díaz Insunza (June 25, 1866 – November 1, 1950), was the first female medical student to attend the University of Chile, and the first woman to become a doctor of medicine in Chile as well as the entire continent of South America. Díaz enrolled in 1880 to Escuela de Medicina de la Universidad de Chile. Shortly after a law was enacted which allowed women to study at the university. Díaz later became the first woman in South America (and in Chile) that graduated, and earn her Medical license. She graduated on December 27, 1886, and obtained her degree on January 3, 1887. In 1910 Díaz participated in Hygiene and Medicine International Scientific Congress in Buenos Aires, where she was named "Illustrious Woman of America." Díaz was named Director of the School Medical Service of Chile in 1911, where she implemented school breakfasts and mass vaccination of students, as well as campaigns to combat alcoholism, rickets and tuberculosis. #hispanicheritagemonth #eliosadiazinsunza #chile #latinos

[efeliciano]

Day 20 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is: Luis Valdez (born June 26, 1940) is an American playwright, actor, writer and film director. Regarded as the father of Chicano theater in the United States, Valdez is best known for his play, later turned film, Zoot Suit, his film La Bamba, and his creation of El Teatro Campesino. A pioneer in the Chicano Movement, Valdez broadened the scope of theatre and arts of the Chicano community. Valdez was raised in the agricultural labor camps around California where his parents worked in the fields, picking whatever crop was in season. He joined activist Cesar Chavez in 1965 and sought to raise funds for the grape boycott and farmworkers strike that Chavez had organized, and bring attention to the plight of migrant farmworkers. Thus begun El Teatro Campesino, which performed short plays based on the struggles of the farmworkers and people of Mexican descent. In 2015, Valdez was awarded the National Medal of Arts “for bringing Chicano culture to American drama.” #hispanicheritagemonth #luisvaldez #zootsuit #labamba #elteatrocampesino

[efeliciano]

Day 19 of my #hispanicheritagemonthspotlight is: Fernando Bujones (March 9, 1955 – November 10, 2005) was born in Miami, Florida to Cuban parents. Bujones is regarded as one of the finest male dancers of the 20th century and hailed as one of the greatest American male dancers of his generation. In 1974, Bujones became the first American male dancer to win the Gold Medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria, where he was also cited for "highest technical achievement." He joined the American Ballet Theatre, one of the world's preeminent dance companies, in 1972. By the following year he became a soloist, and in 1974 a Principal Dancer where, at 19, he was not only one of the youngest principal dancers in the world, but the youngest principal male dancer in ABT's history. Throughout his 30-year dancing career he performed as a guest artist in 34 countries and with more than 60 companies. Bujones died of malignant melanoma at age 50. He was buried at Caballero Rivero Woodlawn North Park Cemetery and Mausoleum in Miami. #hispanicheritagemonth #fernandobujones #ballet #balletdancer