Fiesta Taurina, Peru

A leading Peruvian artist, Ernesto Gutierrez, was born in Lima, Peru, in 1941. His father was a Spaniard and his mother a descendant of the Incas and was raised in the mountains near Limba by his grandparents.

Gutierrez has been influenced by both local artistic factors: Pre-Columbian forms, native-popular Peruvian art, and also by modern French masters, such as Cézanne, Gaugin and, to a certain extent, Matisse. The boldness of Gutierrez’s colors- shocking pink, chartreuse, mauve hues and the whole gamut of blues, purples and greens- sometimes underlined and emphasized by opposite colors, such as black, maize or even pure white, adds to their dramatic effect, creating almost sensual excitement.

In some of his paintings, Gutierrez assumes a cubist-realist simplification of forms and volumes and a precise rendering of surfaces. Gutierrez’s sensibility strikes as essentially Spanish while his inspiration derives from his Inca heritage, Peruvian landscapes and folklore.

Gutierrez entered the School of Fine Arts in Lima, Peru, where in 1964 he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree and was awarded a Gold Medal. Sponsored by the Brazilian government, Gutierrez received the Itamarti Scholarship and studied for two years (1966-67) at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, while extensively exhibiting his works throughout the art centers of South America: Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Cordova, Santiago de Chile, Lima, etc. In 1971, Gutierrez was granted a Fulbright Scholarship and studied at the University of Wisconsin where in 1974 he received a Master of Fine Arts Degree.