Cárdenas Arroyo, Santiago (1937–)

Santiago Cárdenas Arroyo (b. 4 December 1937), Colombian painter. Born in Bogotá, Cárdenas studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (B.F.A. in 1960). After traveling in Europe, he returned to the United States and enrolled in the School of Fine Arts at Yale University, where he studied with Alex Katz, Jack Tworkov, and Neil Welliver, receiving his M.F.A. in 1964. Even before graduation, his work had appeared in his native Colombia at the Asociación de Arquitectos Javerianos, Bogotá (1963). He won first prize for painting at the Art Festival of New Haven, Connecticut (1964). In 1965 he returned to Bogotá and began teaching painting and drawing at the National University, the University of the Andes, and the University of Bogotá. He continued exhibiting his work and won national first prize and regional first prize in painting, III Croydon Salon, Bogotá (1966). In 1967 he had solo exhibitions at the Museum La Tertulia, Cali, and the Belarca Gallery. In 1972 he won first prize at the III Biennale of Art Coltejer, Medellín, Colombia, and was named director of the School of Fine Arts of the National University of Colombia, Bogotá. The following year he had a solo show at the Center for Inter-American Relations, New York, followed by another at the Museum of Modern Art, Bogotá (1976), and the Art Museum, National University, and the Garcés Valásquez Gallery, Bogotá, in 1980.

His paintings have embodied many different styles. His earlier art includes landscapes and nude portraits which then transitioned to objects (clothespins, ironing boards). Cardenas has also experimented with modernist techniques such as cubism and expressionism as well as various mediums such as oil painting and lighting techniques.

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gloria Peña De Kahn, comp., Panorama artístico colombiano (1981).

Eduardo Serrano, Cien años de arte colombiano, 1886–1986 (1986).

Additional Bibliography

Alloway, Lawrence. Realism and Latin American Painting, The 70's. New York: Center for Inter-American Relations, 1980.

Ardila, Jaime, and Camilo Lleras. Verdades sobre arte, mentiras sobre papel. Bogotá: 1994.

                                     BÉlgica RodrÍguez