Art and History at the Banco popular dominicano visual arts collection
Yuli Monción abandoned her profession as publicist to devote herself to drawing and painting, strengthened her training with courses and workshops in Santiago de Cuba, which set the linguistic codes of an identifiable personal style. She arrived to synthesis between configurations, geometry and abstraction. «Henri Matisse’ Lesson I,» oil/canvas, 75x100 cm., 2001 v «Henri Matisse Lesson II,» oil/canvas, 75x100 cm., 2001.
The Sculpture as a Subject Sculpture, as a concept, comes from the Greek terms «Sculpere» or «Sculpterum», referring to the act to sculpt or to carve a hard material as the stone or the wood. The Greeks used the word «Plasso» that means to express, capture or modelling a soft material like clay, wax and stucco. Both words, «Sculpere» and «Plasso» are used on modern languages like the Italian, referring to all artistic tridimensional representation, opposed to the onedimensional nature. Both representations are part of the spatial visual arts, since they occupy a physical space. Despite the spatial condition, drawing, photography and painting lack the tridimensionality of architecture and sculpture and their specific, solidity and volume related to their nature and outward appearance. The sculpture’ tridimensional art is seen through all the national history’ artistic manifestations been it plastic or visual, at the various collections treasuring Dominican art. The one owned by Banco Popular, posses a group of sculptures that tell us about authorship, histories, Dominican identity, even preferential specifications on the modern sculpting or wood craving. Six of our relevant sculptors, allow us a general overview of the spatial/tridimensional art present at the Banco Popular’s Collection. They are: Luichi Martínez Richiez and Antonio Prats-Ventós, linked to the 1940’s generation; Gaspar Mario Cruz, representative of the 1950’s; Nicolás Jimenez and José Ramón Rotellini,
related to the 60’s generation; and Ramiro Matos, who emerges in the 1970’s decade.
Antonio Prats-Ventós. (Barcelona, 1925/New York, 1999). Sculptor formed by masters and workshops in Santo Domingo. He is a master of himself and school counsellor of a great number of young sculptures. Recognized by the national and the European critic, he face all type of materials to conceive his sculptures on different styles, languages, technical procedures and proportions. «With the gouge impulsed by the hammer, Antonio Prats-Ventós took off the volumes and the wood, taking the forms suggested by the material itself, interpreted by the artist’s creative hands». This is a María Ugarte testimony on her book «Prats-Ventos 1925-1999», edited by Banco Popular in 2001. «Black Mahogany,» carved wood, 87x20x81 cm., 1960 v «Abstraction,» carved wood, 18 inch high, no date v «Untitled,» sculpture in mahogany, 30x30 cm., no date v «Untitled,» sculpture in polychromed mahogany, 129 cm. high, 1998 v «Menina,» sculpture in mahogany and paint, 170 cm. high, no date.
Luichi Martínez Richiez. (San Pedro de Macorís, 1928/Santo Domingo, 2005). Considered the Dominican master who took the sculpting to its highest international level. Some of his works are on the Paris’ Modern Art Museum permanent exhibition. He had 10 individual showings on the French capital. Several of his outdoor pieces stand in Santo Domingo and Seoul, South Korea. He won countless national and international awards and took part on equally relevant collective events. «Untitled» Sculpture in mahogany, 245 cm., high., 1987 v «Untitled» Sculpture in mahogany, 29 cm., high., no date 25x19 cm. «Organic vertical» Sculpture in mahogany, 197 cm., high., 1987.
Ramiro Matos. (Azua, 1977). He received formation from Antonio Prats-Ventós. He achieves the Third Prize at the 1974 National Biennial, and the First Prize at the XIV Biennial in 1979. Initially, he works craving on wood on abstract style, later on he looks for industrial
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