Amador, Manuel E. (1869–1952)
Amador, Manuel E. (1869–1952)
Manuel E. Amador (b. 25 March 1869; d. 1952), one of Panama's first modern artists, creator of the national flag (1903). Amador occupied the public posts of minister of finance (1903–1904) and consul in Hamburg, Germany (1904–1908) and in New York City, where he lived from 1908 to 1925. Later, he worked as an auditor in Panama's Contraloría General (1926–1940).
Amador produced most of his oeuvre between 1910 and 1914, and after 1940. His style of vigorous drawing, gestural brush strokes, and somber colors reflected the lessons of German expressionism and the American artist Robert Henri (1865–1929). He painted landscapes and still lifes, but his main subject was the human figure, as exemplified by Cabeza de Estudio (1910) and Rabbi (1948). The University of Panama holds an important collection of his drawings, watercolors, and prints.
See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rodrigo Miró, Manuel E. Amador: un espíritu sin fronteras (1966) and "Lewis, Amador, Ivaldi," in Revista Loteria, no. 219 (May 1974): 72-80.
Additional Bibliography
Cedeño Cenci, Diógenes. Tres estudios sobre la cultura nacional. Panama: Universidad de Panamá, 1993.
Monica E. Kupfer