1. Oswaldo Vigas was a Venezuelan painter, muralist, and sculptor.
19 Facts About Oswaldo Vigas
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Oswaldo Vigas's work included paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics, and tapestries.
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Oswaldo Vigas lived and worked in both France and Venezuela.
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Oswaldo Vigas was born in Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela on August 4,1923.
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Oswaldo Vigas identified as mestizo, a term used to describe a person of mixed indigenous and Spanish heritage.
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Oswaldo Vigas started painting the human body at 12 when his father died.
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Oswaldo Vigas went to college and studied medicine at the University of the Andes and at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas and received a degree in 1951.
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Oswaldo Vigas became interested in pre-Columbian culture and pottery, specifically Venus de Tacarigua figurines.
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Oswaldo Vigas won the National Visual Arts Award in 1952 for his painting La gran bruja and had a major solo exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas.
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Oswaldo Vigas was commissioned to produce five mosaic murals that were to become part of the Universidad Central de Venezuela, later declared a World Heritage Cultural Site by UNESCO in 2000.
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Between 1953 and 1958, Oswaldo Vigas exhibited regularly in France and Venezuela.
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Oswaldo Vigas had exhibitions at the Slater Memorial Museum of Norwich, Connecticut and the University of Nebraska Art Gallery, and participated in the Contemporary Drawings from Latin America show at the Pan-American Union in Washington, DC Oswaldo Vigas was included in another large survey exhibition, South American Art Today, curated by Jose Gomez Sicre at the Dallas Museum of Fine Art.
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Oswaldo Vigas lived in Paris for twelve years, where he met his wife Janine and was associated with Fernand Leger, Max Ernst, and Wifredo Lam.
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Oswaldo Vigas simultaneously accepted an appointment as artistic director of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes, promoting the work of artists and exhibitions, as well as contributing to the creation of national Salons and awards to help artists from around the country.
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Oswaldo Vigas died on April 22,2014, in Caracas, at the age of 90.
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Oswaldo Vigas was survived by his wife Janine Vigas and his son Lorenzo.
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The Oswaldo Vigas Foundation was created to continue to expand his art legacy worldwide.
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Oswaldo Vigas received a Doctor Honoris Causa degree from the Universidad de Los Andes in 1999, and from the Universidad Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho, in Barcelona, Venezuela.
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Oswaldo Vigas received the International Association of Art Critics Award twice, in 2008 and 2014; in 2004, he received the Latin Union Award in Washington, DC.