Luther King

Oswaldo Guayasamin is one of the most representative Ecuadorian artists around the world. He was born in Quito, Ecuador on July 6, 1919 and he died on March 10, 1999, when he was 79 years old.
Hiswork has been shown in museums in all capitals of America and in many countries in Europe, for example, in Moscow, Prague, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, and Warsaw. He carried out 180 individual exhibits,and his production was fruitful in paintings, murals, sculptures and monuments. He has murals in Quito at the Government and Legislative Palaces; Central University and Provincial Council; in Madridat the Barajas airport; also he has another ones at Paris and Sao Paulo.
Can you tell us about your life, your childhood, who were your parents?
I am the first child of ten children on my family.My father was a native from our country and my mother was a mestizo woman. My family was poor and my dad worked as a carpenter and mechanic for most of his life and eventually found work as a taxidriver. My mother died at a young age. I think that this early exposure to poverty and loss had a profound impact on my life.
About my childhood, some of my school’s teachers had told me that Ienjoyed drawing caricatures of them. When I was thirteen I enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Quito, during this time in school politics became an important role in my life and paintings.
When didyou graduate from the School of Fine Arts?
I graduated from the School of Fine Arts in 1940, as a painter and sculptor and I also studied architecture there. By the time I finished it, a magnateNelson Rockefeller visited Quito and was so impressed with my art that he extended me an invitation to visit the United States, where I spent seven months visiting museums. Also I traveled to Mexico andmet the famous Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco. This experience would prove to have a tremendous impact on my later work.
What do you want to represent in your paintings and murals?
I...