Painter and National Art Prize winner Guillermo Núñez died

The painter and National Art Prize winner Guillermo Núñez died at the age of 94, as reported this Thursday by the University of Chile.

“Our university community regretfully bids farewell to Guillermo Núñez Henríquez, National Prize for Fine Arts in 2007, who was a graduate and teacher at the University of Chile, and whose multifaceted career in painting, engraving, graphics and more, showed a deep social and politics,” the study house indicated on its social networks.

The artist was born on January 27, 1930 in Santiago, Chile. In 1949 he entered the Theater School at the University of Chile and then the School of Fine Arts of the same school, where he was a student of Gregorio de la Fuente and Pablo Burchard, according to the Visual Artists site of the National Museum of Fine arts.

During that time he also participated in the Plastic Students Group of the University of Chile, which questioned the current traditional academic system in order to improve artistic education.

In 1953 he traveled to Paris to deepen his training. He studied at the Grand Chaumiére Academy and at the Arsenal and Opera Library. In this city he met Roberto Matta, who would influence the beginnings of his work. Later, he moved to Czechoslovakia where he studied engraving at the UMPRUM, Prague High School of Applied Arts, in 1959. That same year, he was awarded a scholarship by the Ministry of Culture of that country.

In the 1950s Núñez traveled through Europe, where he met great artists, poets and film directors. After a stay in New York between 1964 and 1965, he returned to Chile, where he developed an exhibition of drawings created in the United States, which have been considered the beginning of his foray into Pop aesthetics. He also drew covers for the magazine Ercilla and during the 1970 electoral campaign he was actively involved in the presidential campaign of Salvador Allende (1908-1973). In this context, he also organized various exhibitions such as The People Have Art with Allende, which was held simultaneously in different places in Chile.

In 1971, he was appointed Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago, a position he held for one year. During his management he mainly sought to bring the public closer to the museum, through exhibitions and artistic activities.

In 1974 he was detained in his home by the intelligence services of the military dictatorship, being arrested and tortured. In 1975, after being released, he held the exhibition Exculpturas-printuras, which was closed a few hours after its inauguration. The artist was arrested again and expelled from the country. He had to go into exile in France, where he lived for 12 years and developed several exhibitions and interventions that spread to different European countries. In the 1980s he was allowed to return to Chile and in 1987 he returned permanently.

A multifaceted artist, throughout his career he has dedicated himself to different areas of creation, seeking meeting points and integration of disciplines. He has developed painting, engraving, silk-screen printing, photo-screen printing, graphics, installations and object art, with themes that refer to historical events, wars, disputes and personal experiences, which show and denounce violence and human destruction.

He has also worked designing costumes and sets for theater, opera and ballet, in Chile and abroad. She highlights her participation in the making of films, posters and murals with political messages, as well as her participation in the Experimental Theater of the University of Chile and teaching Theater at said university.

His work has circulated in museums and galleries around the world, such as Cuba, the United States, France, Germany and Switzerland, among other countries. His extensive career was recognized in 2007, when he was awarded by the Government of Chile with the National Prize for Plastic Arts.