Andrés de Santa María

Andrés de Santa María, (December 16 1860 - April 29 1945) was a Colombian painter from Bogotá. His work was mostly impressionist in nature.

Biography

Santa Maria was born in Bogota on December 16 1860. In his childhood he spent two years in England.

In 1882 entered the School of Fine Arts in Paris, where he studied under Fernando Humberto and Enrique Gervex, and worked alongside Ignacio Zuluaga, Santiago Rusiñol and the Prince Eugene of Sweden. In 1889 he painted the picture of Matías de Francisco for the Bank of Bogota, and in this year also painted Lavadoras del Sena. From 1893 he made many trips back and forth to Europe where he made a notable exhibition in Bogota in 1897 before returning to Europe.

In 1904 however, he was invited by the president of the republic, general Rafael Reyes, to perform an exhibition with the writers Sanín Cano, Hinestroza Daza and Max Grillo. Until 1911 he was director of the School of Fine Arts in Bogota. In 1906 he painted the triptych of the National Capital, in this represented Simon Bolivar directing the liberation campaign. On finishing his work as director of the School of Beautiful Arts, he returned again to Europe and settled in Brussels.

In 1936, he received much acclaim from his exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels . In 1937 he made a retrospective exhibition in the Burlington Gallery in London, displaying 125 paintings made over a 30 year period from 1907.

Style and legacy

Santa Maria's work was in essence, impressionist in character and his work had an impact on modern painting in Colombia. Sometimes, this impressionism however would take passage to postimpressionist and other influences. He influenced the work of later artists such as Fídolo Alfonso González Camargo and Roberto Páramo. In Latin America, one can draw parallels of his work with the Venezuelan Armando Reverón and the Uruguayan Pedro Figari. The greatest collection of his works amounting to some 30 oil paintings is conserved by the National Museum of Colombia in Bogota. The museum owns emblematic pieces such as "En la Playa de Macuto" (Ca. 1907). His other works are in museums such as Colección de Arte del Banco de la República, the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá and the Museo de Antioquia in Medellín, Antioquia.

He died in 1945.

External links

* [http://www.colarte.arts.co/ConsPintores.asp?Carpeta=DeSantaMariaAndres&NOMARTISTA=DeSantaMariaAndres&IDARTISTA=478&subdir=o Andrés de Santa María at ColArte]