Víctor Varela

Venezuelan visual artists Víctor Varela died on March 5 at the age of 86. After experimenting with murals and figurative sculptures Varela resumed the abstract works he had been focusing on during his early career.

Víctor Varela was born on February 17 of 1927 in Maracaibo. In 1941 he entered the Escuela de Artes Plásticas and four years later moved to Caracas to attend the Escuela the Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas. He eventually settled in Paris and studied with masters Jean Dewasne, Victor Vasarely and Fernand Léger.

His pictorial and sculptural work has been exhibited in countries like Colombia, Brazil, the USs, Italy (Venice Biennial), Spain, Belgium and Chna. In 1958 he received the National Sculpture Prize, and in 2002 the Honoris Causa Doctoral Degree from the Universidad Católica Cecilio Acosta in Maracaibo and, in 2009, from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

The most recent exhibition of his work was entitled Point and Line and was presented in 2011 at the Galería Arte Ascaso, in Las Mercedes.