Art and History at the Banco popular dominicano visual arts collection
Twice a master; as an artist and a professor at the academy he established in his home city, Santiago, as well as at the Fine Arts National School and his home atelier, Yoryi Morel was a modern painter. He gave thematic and stylistic foundations to Santiago’s regional school. Hilario Rodríguez, Plutarco Andújar and Carlos Hidalgo were among the painters who received his influence and expressed it in different ways. Juan Plutarco Andújar and Hilario, part of the 1950’s generation, upon graduation, they started exhibiting their works during that period. They also travel internationally, mainly to the United States. Both, returned back to Dominican Republic, subscribed to different contests and hold individual exhibitions.
Juan Plutarco Andújar. Had an individual showing at Nader Gallery (Santo Domingo, 1974), while Hilario Rodríguez registered various individuals at Casa de Teatro (1975) and Auffant Gallery (1977). «Atarazana,» mix/canvas, no date, 50x34 cm. Spiritually, as a Santo Domingo’s resident, the painter is stricken by his native Northwest Atlantic and the Southern Caribbean littoral’s luminosity. His masters José Gausachs, Yoryi Morel and Hans Paap, had an influence on his landscape treatise (rural, local, maritime, villager and urban) as it is seen on the commendable painting «Atarazana» which focus on an architectonic group related to the colonial habitat, apart from revealing a personal style’ faultless palette.
Hilario Rodríguez. (Santiago, 1936). He started his pictorial instruction at the Yoryi Academy, receiving guidance from Félix Negro Disla. As a scholarship holder from the Dominican government, he studied at the Fine Arts National School with masters Gausachs, Yoryi Morel, Gilberto Hernández Ortega and Vela Zanetti. In 1962 he traveled to New York and participated in collective showings. Back to the country in 1966, he works in publicity, painting only occasionally. In 1969, his painting «Cibao» is awarded at the IV León Jimenes
Contest. Since the 1970s, he became an active exhibitor of different themes, namely market’s and typical mulatto farmers’ scenes. «Two Women,» acrylic/canvas, 70x96 cm., 1977. The painting is a landscape, defined by various planes. The side one or the first, shows on its extreme, a foliage mound associated to various leaning trees, truncated by the composition’s treatment. Then, the yellowish path where two women walk carrying baskets and clothes bundles on their respective heads. An ochre land edge form a sideline elevation towards a green savannah with trees and diverse elements completed by a lineal forest, like the blue mountainous group in contrast with the cloudy sky pale tone. «Girl with Roses,» pastel/paper, no date, 25x19 cm. During his years in New York, Hilario worked until he became a skilled pastel technic portraits painter. The theme of the mulatto girl’s profile with hat and yellow dress entranced by the roses she holds in her hands, is a stamp of effective contrast between typological figuration and abstractionist background.
Carlos Hidalgo. (Santiago Rodríguez, 1948). Trained at the Fine Arts National School. Since 1969 takes part in different students exhibitions and after 1970, continues to show his work as a professor. In 1975, he paints various murals at the History Museum and at Gallery 7, at a time he establishes an artistic relationship with Yoryi Morel, visiting often his atelier in Santiago. «Market,» oil/canvas, 8x10 cm., 1977. The picturesque scene full of colour and merchant’s customs is representative of the painter’s discourse conscious turn after receiving academic instruction. This turn shows –if not his adhesion to Yoryi’s scholar mode– his discovering of the creole and vernacular essences as well as himself and his northeastern, national discourse. The farmers and merchants theme that defines the works of Yoryi Morel, Carlos Hidalgo and Hilario Rodríguez, connects with the visions of artists like Cándido Bidó, Justo Susana, León Bosch and Miguel de Moya…
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