Enrique Grau was born in 1920 at the American Hospital in Panama
City, although his family lived in Cartagena. (This was not uncommon for
those who could afford it.) As a twenty-year-old student, Grau received
Honorable Mention at the First Salon of National Artists, held in Bogotá,
for his Cartagena Mulattress (1940). His natural technical ability
is evident in this work, which reflects current tendencies in Colombian
art, particularly at the teaching level. Viewing this, one can begin to
imagine the resistance Obregón encountered during his brief directorship
at the School of Fine Arts.
The Colombian government thereafter granted Enrique Grau a scholarship
to study at the Art Students League in New York, where he remained until
1943. Returning to Bogotá, Grau, along with Obregón, Negret,
Ramírez Villamizar and other young talents, began to play an active
role in artistic circles, taking part in salons and exhibiting at commercial
galleries. A frequent locale for exhibits of the rising generation of artists
was the Colombian Society of Architects and in 1948 each of the four held
an individual show there.
Grau's early work shows a number of influences, including briefly that
of Obregón, whose personality and work deeply affected other young
artists. In turn, Grau's influence can be detected in the work of his contemporaries,
including a little-known early period of Fernando Botero. While Grau's personal
style was not clearly defined until about 1959, his earlier work suggests
an intentional effort to modernize the visual arts of Colombia.
Grau's refined technique is marked by a firm grounding in drawing and
exquisite handling of pictorial matter, resulting in part from his extensive
training, which includes studies of painting and fresco at the Academy of
Saint Mark in Florence. He is quite frankly a figurative painter and his
work offers refreshing relief from the geometric abstraction that once dominated
the international scene.
An understanding of the pictorial world of Enrique Grau requires appreciation
of the sensuality that technique can impart to a painted image, without
reference to a "story" or recourse to descriptive illustration.
In his compositions one finds a seemingly arbitrary association of figures
and objects. Yet behind the apparent superficiality, casualness and studied
disarray, lie the most complex of desires and reasonings, whose outward
manifestations take curious forms that defy human conventions.
Beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present, Grau has engaged
in sculpture, as represented here by The Kiss, part of the studies
for a larger composition. He has also practiced printmaking and executed
murals throughout his career and is presently working on the dome and stage
curtain for the Heredia Theater in Cartagena. As was Obregón, Grau
has been honored with the title, Hijo Predilecto de Cartagena de Indias
(Favorite Son of Cartagena de Indias).
Cartagena, declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, is also called
"La Heroica" for its role during Colombia's war of independence
from Spain. Grau's love for the colonial city is reflected in his recently
finished work, Triptych of Cartagena de Indias. At the request of
the artist, this work is being presented for the first time at this exhibit
in the IDB Cultural Center's Art Gallery. |
