1919-1999
Born in Quito to an indigenous Kichwa father, Guayasamín built a body of work centred on the persecuted and dispossessed of Latin America. His three great cycles — Huacayñán, La Edad de la Ira and La Edad de la Ternura — span half a century.
The style compresses cubist fracture and expressionist distortion into figures reduced to hands, eyes and open mouths. He worked as a portraitist of the continent’s political and cultural figures throughout his life. He died in Baltimore in 1999, leaving unfinished the Chapel of Man in Quito.
