Estuardo Maldonado
Encyclopedia
Estuardo Maldonado is a Latin American sculptor and painter inspired by the Constructivist
movement. Maldonado is a member of VAN , the group of Informalist painters founded by Enrique Tábara
. Other members of VAN included, Aníbal Villacís
, Luis Molinari
, Hugo Cifuentes
and Gilberto Almeida. Maldonado's international presence is largely due to his participation in over a hundred exhibits outside of Ecuador.
Born in Píntag, in the Quito
district of Ecuador, Maldonado left home at a young age in order to observe and learn from nature. Both nature and the indigenous themes have been a fundamental inspiration for much of his work. Maldonado studied art at the School of Fine Arts in Guayaquil
. By 1953, Maldonado was teaching drawing and art history at the American School of Guayaquil. In 1955, Maldonado traveled the Ecuadorian coast painting the people of the coast and landscapes.
In 1955, Maldonado held his first exhibitions in Guayaquil, Portoviejo, and Esmereldas. In 1956, Benjamin Carrion
invited Maldonado to exhibit at the House of Ecuadorian Culture making him the first Ecuadorian artist to exhibit sculpture in Quito and Guayaquil. In 1957, Maldonado set out for Europe on a scholarship and traveled to France, Germany, Switzerland and the Nethelands and settled in Rome, Italy. Maldonado attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome and the Academy of San Giacomo.
Maldonado's work depicts abstractions of nature. His ancestral roots are also evident in some of his works based on pre-Columbian
imagery from his native Andean zone. At the same time, he is interested in the palpitation of the evolving Universe. It is because of this inherent curiosity with advancement and history that he has a place within the Latin American Constructivist art movement.
Vladimir Tatlin
founded Constructivism in Russia in 1913. Influenced by Futurism
and Cubism
, this movement is based on abstract, geometric forms and is related to architectural ideas. The Constructivist movement made its way into Latin America by way of Joaquín Torres García
and Manuel Rendón. Constructive Universalism is an innovative style created by Joaquín Torres García who after living in Europe for over forty years, returned to his native land, Uruguay
and brought with him new artistic concepts. Constructive Universalism combines references to the Pre-Columbian world with the geometric forms of European Constructivism.
Maldonado's work has been celebrated throughout the world for successfully combining nature with innovation while addressing the relationship to his Andean roots.
In 2009, Maldonado was awarded the Premio Eugenio Espejo
, his country's most prestigious National Award for Art, Literature and Culture presented by the President of Ecuador.
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
movement. Maldonado is a member of VAN , the group of Informalist painters founded by Enrique Tábara
Enrique Tábara
Luis Enrique Tábara is a master Ecuadorian painter and teacher representing a whole Hispanic pictorial and artistic culture....
. Other members of VAN included, Aníbal Villacís
Aníbal Villacís
Aníbal Villacís is a master painter from Ecuador who used raw earthen materials such as clay and natural pigments to paint on walls and doors throughout his city when he could not afford expensive artist materials. As a teenager, Villacís taught himself drawing and composition by studying and...
, Luis Molinari
Luis Molinari
Luis Molinari was a member of VAN , a group of informal constructivist artists founded by Enrique Tábara....
, Hugo Cifuentes
Hugo Cifuentes
Hugo Gilberto Cifuentes Navarro was a pioneering Latin American photographer.Cifuentes began studying drawing and painting in the 1940s, before turning to photography. Cifuentes received his first prize for photographic composition in 1949...
and Gilberto Almeida. Maldonado's international presence is largely due to his participation in over a hundred exhibits outside of Ecuador.
Born in Píntag, in the Quito
Quito
San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
district of Ecuador, Maldonado left home at a young age in order to observe and learn from nature. Both nature and the indigenous themes have been a fundamental inspiration for much of his work. Maldonado studied art at the School of Fine Arts in Guayaquil
Guayaquil
Guayaquil , officially Santiago de Guayaquil , is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador,with about 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and nearly 3.1 million in the metropolitan area, as well as that nation's main port...
. By 1953, Maldonado was teaching drawing and art history at the American School of Guayaquil. In 1955, Maldonado traveled the Ecuadorian coast painting the people of the coast and landscapes.
Benjamín Carrión
Manuel Benjamín Carrión Mora was an Ecuadorian writer and cultural promoter.He was born into an aristocratic family in Loja. He was a lawyer by training, and occupied various positions in the public arena, including Minister of Education, legislator, diplomat in several countries of Europe and...
invited Maldonado to exhibit at the House of Ecuadorian Culture making him the first Ecuadorian artist to exhibit sculpture in Quito and Guayaquil. In 1957, Maldonado set out for Europe on a scholarship and traveled to France, Germany, Switzerland and the Nethelands and settled in Rome, Italy. Maldonado attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome and the Academy of San Giacomo.
Maldonado's work depicts abstractions of nature. His ancestral roots are also evident in some of his works based on pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
imagery from his native Andean zone. At the same time, he is interested in the palpitation of the evolving Universe. It is because of this inherent curiosity with advancement and history that he has a place within the Latin American Constructivist art movement.
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement...
founded Constructivism in Russia in 1913. Influenced by Futurism
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
and Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, this movement is based on abstract, geometric forms and is related to architectural ideas. The Constructivist movement made its way into Latin America by way of Joaquín Torres García
Joaquín Torres García
Joaquín Torres García , was a Uruguayan plastic artist and art theorist, also known as the founder of Constructive Universalism...
and Manuel Rendón. Constructive Universalism is an innovative style created by Joaquín Torres García who after living in Europe for over forty years, returned to his native land, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and brought with him new artistic concepts. Constructive Universalism combines references to the Pre-Columbian world with the geometric forms of European Constructivism.
Maldonado's work has been celebrated throughout the world for successfully combining nature with innovation while addressing the relationship to his Andean roots.
In 2009, Maldonado was awarded the Premio Eugenio Espejo
Premio Eugenio Espejo
The Premio Nacional Eugenio Espejo is the national prize of the nation of Ecuador.Decrees 677 and 699 established the prize, which is conferred by the President of Ecuador.The Award is bestowed every other year...
, his country's most prestigious National Award for Art, Literature and Culture presented by the President of Ecuador.
Museums and exhibitions
- 1956 - House of Ecuadorian Culture, GuayaquilGuayaquilGuayaquil , officially Santiago de Guayaquil , is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador,with about 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and nearly 3.1 million in the metropolitan area, as well as that nation's main port...
, Ecuador - 1964 - Biennial of Venice, VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Italy - 1974 - Center for the International Studies of Constructivist Art, BonnBonnBonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, Germany - 1974 - Marcon IV Gallery, Rome, Italy
- 1985 - First Latin American Symposium of Sculpture of Santo DomingoSanto DomingoSanto Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
, Dominican Republic - 1985 - Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American StatesOrganization of American StatesThe Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...
(OAS), Washington, D.C. - 1986 - Ecuadorian Embassy, Port-au-PrincePort-au-PrincePort-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....
, HaitiHaitiHaiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island... - 1987 - I Biennial International Painting of River Basin, River Basin, Ecuador
- 1987 - Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MoCHA), New York
- 1988 - XX Biennial of São Paulo, São PauloSão PauloSão Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, Brazil - 1991 - Masters of Latin America, Nagoya, Japan
- 1994 - Gallery of Nadar Art, Dominican RepublicDominican RepublicThe Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
- 1998 - Museum of Italian Art, LimaLimaLima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, PeruPeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.... - 2000 - Pontifica Catholic University of Ecuador
- 2000 - Mueum of Modern Art, Santiago, ChileSantiago, ChileSantiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
- 2000 - Exhibition, Perth, Western AustraliaPerth, Western AustraliaPerth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
- 2001 - Exposición Centro Cultural Metropolitano de Quito, Ecuador.
- 2002 - Antología"1945-2002", Pontificia Universidad Católica de Ecuador.
- 2002 - Sala Municipal de Exposiciones de Valencia. L’Almudí.Valencia, Spain
- 2003 - Museo Luis Gonzalez Robles Alcalá de Henares. Madrid, Spain
- 2004 - Banco Central del Ecuador. Quito, Ecuador.
- 2004 - Galería Arte Jorge Ontiveros. Madrid, Spain
- 2004 - Sala Ayuntamiento L’Olleria. ValenciaSpain
- 2005 - Exposición en Chicago. Galería Aldo Castillo.
- 2005 - Fundación Jaume II el Just. Real Monasterio Santa Maria Valldigna. Generalitat Valenciana (Simat de Valldigna).
- 2005 - Sala Exposiciones Ayuntamiento de Elche. Alicante. España
- 2005 - Aldo Castillo Gallery, ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
USA - 2006 - The Katzen Art Center at American University, Washington, D.C., USA
- 2006 - Sala Autoral, Estuardo Maldonado, Museo Antropologico y de Arte ContemporaneoMuseo Antropologico y de Arte ContemporaneoMuseo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo is a state-of-the-art museum in Guayaquil, Ecuador celebrating Ecuadorian, Latin American and Pre-Columbian art and culture. MAAC is a welcome addition to Malecón 2000, the renovated riverwalk in Guayaquil...
(MAAC), Guayaquil, Ecuador. - 2007 - Galeria de Arte "CosmoArte Siglo XXV". Alicante, Spain
- 2008 - Ministry of Foreign Trade and Integration - Ecuadorian Embassy in Germany, Berlin, Germany.
- 2008 - ArtMadrid. Madrid. España
- 2008 - Sala de Exposiciones Parque de atracciones "Terra Mitica" . Benidorm. Alicante, Spain
- 2008 - Expo Zaragoza 2008. Pabellón de las Artes de Telefónica. Zaragoza, Spain