Juan Cardenas

JUAN CARDENAS (Bogotá, Colombia, 1939).
Untitled, 1975.
Silkscreen on paper. Copy 32/175.
Signed, dated and justified by hand.
Slight deterioration.
Measurements: 50 x 65,5 cm.
Juan Cárdenas is a Colombian painter who began his artistic training linked to painting. He began his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, in the United States, where he lived most of his life. Regarding his artistic career, he first began as a cartoonist for publications such as El Tiempo, La República, El Espacio and Flash magazine. He first appeared as a cartoonist, collaborating with these newspapers, which he continued to do throughout his life and also earned him imprisonment for a cartoon. He later became a professor of painting and drawing at the Universidad de los Andes between 1969 and 1972. His first individual exhibition took place in 1973, at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota. He participated and won first prize in the 25th National Salon of Colombian Artists in 1974 for his self-portrait ("Autorretrato Dibujo"), thus achieving great recognition by the public and critics. His painting is characterized by the use of the line in primacy with respect to color, which becomes important through the atmospheric composition of space. Most of his production explores the portrait, both his own and that of other renowned artists. However, he always presents it from a solitary and intimate point of view.