Oswaldo Guayasamìn

In a dark, expressionistic style that recalls the work of Kathe Kollwitz and Max Beckmann, painter Oswaldo Guayasamín captured human suffering on canvas and murals: His subjects ranged from contemplative Indigenous prisoners and starving children to European concentration camps and the bombing of Hiroshima. Inspired by pre-Columbian forms, Ecuadorian folk art, Christian iconography, and Cubism, his figures often look emaciated, even skeletal, with flattened, mask-like faces. He studied in Mexico with the muralist José Clemente Orozco and was politically aligned with the Mexican muralists at large—he supported Cuba’s communist revolution and staunchly opposed American imperialism. During his lifetime, Guayasamín exhibited in Rome, Madrid, Paris, Mexico City, and beyond. His work has sold for six figures at auction and belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Museum of the Americas, the Museum of Latin American Art, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Guayasamín also made sculptures, works on paper, and jewelry. Towards the end of his life, he began work on the monumental Chapel of Man art museum in Quito, Ecuador.