Venezuela: Homage to Francisco Narváez at the CAF Art Gallery

As part of the celebration of its 35th anniversary and in keeping with its work of disseminating the creative activities of Latin American peoples, the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) joins efforts with the Francisco Narváez Foundation to present the Flowers of Narváez exhibition in the CAF Art Gallery on June 9 at 7pm.

With this presentation, CAF pays homage to the Venezuelan plastic artist Francisco Narváez on the centenary of his birth, revealing a little known aspect of the artist: his facet as painter since Narváez is mainly known in the country as a master of sculpture.

The Flowers of Narváez exhibition is one of a series of activities organized by the CAF Cultural and Community Development Department as a contribution to the integrated development and formation of human beings through creativity and artistic expression, as well as developing and supporting national talent.

CAF President & CEO Enrique Garcia said that culture, as a creative expression of peoples, was part of the Corporation’s mission, which confirms its commitment to sustainable development and integration, promoting initiatives for the diffusion of the region’s cultural values. The artistic show of the work of Narváez highlights the most genuine expressions of creativity and the Ibero-American artistic genius.

Francisco Narváez, rooted in his native land of Margarita, Nueva Esparta state, took flowers, the human figure and landscape as the themes for chromatic study. As the flower has historically been a ritual object of celebration, CAF decided to fill its gallery with the flowers that the Latin American master left as his pictorial legacy.

The secret of the Flowers of Narváez

The joy of living is the energy that stimulates the work of Narváez, the song of the origin of his cultures, his landscapes, his figures ... his flowers!

In the passion of his prolific life, wood, stone, hangings, drawings were born in nature “to infuse life with its own song. If they are considered with the same spirit in which they were conceived, they inspire in us the very music of life."

Exaltation, yet serene, if you like discreet but dense expression of will for form which evolved assimilating the concerns and tendencies of the period, but fresh, without stridencies, without intellectual pedantries of contemporaneity, insecure and nervous trends that reflect deep unease rather than the affirmation of human beauty.

Where is the secret of the indefinable charm of the Flowers of Narváez? It is in their closeness to life, to the fresh and soft earth of their immediate surroundings if we start from the basic idea that art, in its most legitimate expressions, is organically connected, not to a time and a social and historical space but lovingly to the soil and to the country’s most intimate heartbeats.

... the flowers of Narváez and all the flowers in the world, the energy of love and goodness - and even misery, cruelty and bad thoughts - are not important, everything, absolutely everything, is united by a primordial force; when we discover a natural order of the world in ordinary things, when we understand in each particle, in each detail, in each brief moment, the sign of the universe, essential sign of a many-sided truth. "Finally there is a song with a cut and absolute lily."

About Francisco Narváez

Francisco Narváez was born on October 5, 1905 in Porlamar, Nueva Esparta state. In 1922 he traveled to Caracas to study painting and sculpture in the Fine Arts Academy; six years later he moved to Paris to study in the Julian Academy for three years. In 1931, he returned to Caracas and set up his studio in Catia.

In 1934 he began his urban sculpture work with the fountain of the Plaza de Parque Carabobo in Caracas. Two years later he designed a relief for the Caracas Pedagogical Institute; in 1939 he executed five monumental carvings in mahogany for the Venezuelan Pavilion at the New York World Fair, which are now located in the Fermín Toro and Andrés Bello Schools in Caracas.

The recognitions he has received include: the National Sculpture Prize in the First Official Exhibition of Venezuelan Art (1940); the John Boulton Prize in the third Annual Show for his work Black Woman in Barlovento (1942); and the National Painting Prize in the 9th Official Annual Exhibition of Venezuelan Art (1948).

In 1943 he created the “Las Toninas” fountain in Plaza O´Leary, El Silencio, and began La Patria for the Venezuelan Military School. Six years later he was commissioned to create various works for Caracas University City.

In 1952 he traveled to Italy to execute the equestrian sculpture of General Rafael Urdaneta for Plaza Candelaria in Caracas. The next year he designed a bust of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández for the Central University, and created a Maternity figure for the Mario Abreu Contemporary Art Museum in Maracay. In 1954 he completed the sculpture La Cultura, Plaza del Rectorado, Central University, and was named director of the Caracas School of Plastic and Applied Arts.

Two years later, in 1954, he executed the Panneau of the Botanical Garden of the University City in Caracas, and Roots epoch of the new forms located in the National Gallery of Art.

Other important works of Narváez include: Headless Figure (1966) acquired by the Central Bank of Venezuela; La Ronda (1967), bronze sculpture in Porlamar; the Virgin of Coromoto for the Nazareth Sanctuary, Israel (1969). He also donated to his native city Two Vertical Volumes and One Horizontal in Cumarebo stone (1974).

In 1975, Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez decreed the building of the Francisco Narváez Contemporary Art Museum in Porlamar, Margarita. In 1977 Narváez created La Estela, a monument to Raúl Leoni in El Cafetal, Caracas.

The Narváez Museum opened in Porlamar in 1979. In 1981, the produced the monumental sculpture Great Volume for Lagoven in Amuay, Falcon state. The next year Narváez created his last work for Metro de Caracas, the sculpture Harmony of Volumes in Space in the Francisco Narváez Plaza, La Hoyada station. He died in Caracas on July 7, 1982.