Oswaldo Guayasamin, Lithograph, Untitled, Mid-20th Century

Lithograph on brown paper depicting the portrait of a bearded man set in a wooden frame.

Undated.
Signed “Guayasamin” in ink in the lower right corner.

The sheet of brown paper is mounted on a sheet of cream-colored paper serving as a margin, signed “Guayasamin” in the lower right corner and numbered 14/45 in the lower left corner in pencil. 

Ecuadorian painter, draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor Oswaldo Guayasamín was born in Quito in 1919 and trained at the city’s School of Fine Arts. His work, marked by expressionism and social realism, reflects a deep interest in the human condition and social injustices. His travels throughout Latin America fueled his reflections on indigenous and mestizo populations, poverty, oppression, and the political violence plaguing the continent.
Beginning in the 1940s, Guayasamín developed a figurative style characterized by simplified forms and the expressive intensity of faces and hands. His painting gradually took on a universal dimension, making human suffering and the struggle against oppression the major themes of his work. His international career was notably marked by the Grand Prize at the Third Hispanic-American Art Biennial in Barcelona in 1955 and by his distinction at the São Paulo Biennial in 1957.
In 1976, he established the Guayasamín Foundation in Quito, dedicated to preserving his work and his collections. His project for the Capilla del Hombre, conceived as a tribute to the Latin American people and to the continent’s collective memory, extends this desire to make art a space for remembrance and reflection on the human condition.

The lithograph and frame are in very good overall condition.
There is a faint, illegible pen inscription on the back.
Dated to the mid-20th century.

Dimensions of the print: 22.1 x 18.4 cm

Paper dimensions:
Framed: 36 x 31.1 cm
Visible area: 34.5 x 28.5 cm