Edgar Negret (1920-2012)
"The nobility of the materials is found in our imagination"
Edgar Negret
Popayán-born Edgar Negret, considered the great master of sculpture in Colombia, passed away on October 11th in Bogotá, at the age of 92.
The son of General Rafael Negret Vivas and María Dueñas, Negret studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Cali from 1930 to 1943. A year later, in his native Popayán, he met Basque artist Jorge Oteiza, who acquainted the young Colombian with modern sculpture.
After the conventionally-conceived erect or reclining figures he created as a student, between 1944 and 1948 Negret worked on a series of plaster sculptures that foreshadowed his ample inventiveness; some had a religious theme, and some were mythological (Tritón y Venus and La muchacha en la ventana).
Negret traveled to New York City for the first time in late 1948. There, besides some biomorphic ceramic works, he created his first constructions. Among them we find El nido and Rostro de Cristo, both from 1950. In them, the metal sheet and the wire used by the artist allude to the theme without any trace of naturalistic proclivity.
After seeing the posthumous Julio González retrospective in Paris in 1953, Negret began using iron in his work. The constructions created in Palma de Mallorca between 1953 and 1954 already suggest devices or machines. In late 1955, Negret settled in New York, where he remained until 1963. During this period, he created the series Aparatos mágicos, where for the first time he used aluminum (since then, his exclusive material); after attempting to connect the various pieces using a folding technique, he decided in favor of screws and bolts.
This series is characterized by the inclusion of geometric elements and by its compositional rigor. Also its color: the constructions are painted in black, white, red, and blue. In 1962, Negret exhibited his Eclipses in Spoleto, alongside Venezuelan sculptors Jesús Rafael Soto and Alejandro Otero.
After 15 years abroad, Negret returned to Colombia in 1963, settling in Bogotá. He participated in the 15th National Artists Salon and won First Prize in sculpture with Vigilante celeste. In 1967, in the 19th Salon, he again received First prize with Cabo Kennedy.
Negret received many distinctions for the excellence of his work, among them the Best Foreign artist award at ARCO, given by the Art Critics Association of Madrid, Spain), in 1997, and in 1998 the Orden Andrés Bello medal in Caracas, Venezuela.
His most recent retrospective exhibition took place in June, 2009, at Galería Mundo in Bogotá. The National Government of Colombia, in celebration of Negret's 90th birthday and the 25th anniversary of the establishment of his Museum in Popayán, Cauca, gave him the Gran Orden medal of the Culture Ministry on September 28th, 2010.
