Art and History at the Banco popular dominicano visual arts collection
acrylic/canvas, canvas,
100x76 cm., 1991 v «Merengueros,» 101x127 cm., 1992.
acrylic/
MARIO GRULLÓN: SPRING IN AUTUMN Sponsored by Banco Popular Dominicano, Mario Grullón held in Altos de Chavón the solo exhibition «Spring in Autumn,» in November 1984. It was an appropriate title. The painter born in Santiago de los Caballeros in 1918 had found the turning point to become a fulltime artist, at age 66 when he was going through the autumn of his life. Gone were those jobs required to support his family and their needs. With his palette, brushes and color palettes, he began transcribing his visions as spring tunes. Mario Grullón liked to paint since he was a child, helping his father in decorative tasks. When Yoryi Morel discovered him working at the Sociedad Cultural Alianza Cibaeña in 1940, he urged him to attend the Academy of Painting, which he had established in Sol Street, adjacent to the old site of the Church of Altagracia. After a period of guidance, in his twenties, he was awarded a scholarship by the City Council to continue his studies at the National School of Fine Arts, founded in the capital city in 1942. He graduated from this center as a painting teacher, associated with the young artistic generation of the 40s, and with remarkable modern Dominicans and Europeans maestros who breathed modern rhetoric, already contaminated with Yoryi’s production. Upon graduating, Mario Grullón returned to his home city, dividing his time between multiple jobs during the day and painting at night to keep alive his recognition as an artist. He was a painter of signs, banners and decorative murals. Also, he was a penman and teacher, honoured by numerous awards from the Dominican College of Visual Artists (1987), the National Competition for Children (1988), the Science and Art Foundation (1989), and among others, the one from Fine Arts and Culture for this teaching (1992).
In his presentation of the exhibition «Autum in Spring,» Don Alejandro E. Grullón writes: «Last year Banco Popular Dominicano initiated a program to annually sponsor art exhibitions in Altos de Chavón. In this second year of the program we are showcasing the first solo exhibition of renowned painter Mario Grullón. Thus Banco Popular Dominicano continues to offers its support to the development of the visual arts in the Dominican Republic, providing an opportunity to present solo exhibitions of artists who for one reason or another could not do it, at the same time contributing to the wonderful work on behalf of art and culture that makes the Foundation Altos de Chavón. We hope that this joint task (…) will stimulate a new generation of artists and thus contribute to the cultural development of our country, with the enthusiastic support of all Dominicans.» In the Main Gallery Altos de Chavón, maestro Grullón displayed fifty works on various topics especially costumbrista, and almost all of Cibao. Recognized as a national artist, the newspaper «El Caribe» September 1996 dedicates him an editorial: Mario Grullón. «With the same ease with which he lived, the painter Mario Grullón died recently in Santiago, his land, where he always remained devoted to his art in a quiet and fruitful manner. Was an artist who, despite not having been among the best-known representatives of the current visual arts not for lack of merit but of opportunities, he can be considered as one of the pillars of the painting of the Cibao region. Region that he successfully brought to the canvas with skill, realism and love. Modest as it was, did not hesitate to complete the murals initiated by Vela Zanetti in what was Monument of Peace and is now dedicated to the Heroes of the Restoration, in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros. And perhaps few know that to help his great friend Yoryi Morel at times he was suffering temporary blindness, Mario Grullón took the brush of maestro Yoryi, so he would not suffer from economic hardship. Good artist and tireless worker, Mario Grullón will always be remembered with respect and affection by those who knew him, while his paintings, reflections of nature and a people he adored, will become the permanent testimony of visual arts values of this native of Santiago that made the world of his birth his freely chosen habitat.»
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