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Description
Offered here is an original painting by esteemed Venezuela artist Antonio Alcantara, circa 1975. Painting is oil on hard fiber board and measures ~13 X 18 inches. Includes gold gallery framing with overall size of ~22 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches. Painting is signed lower left and is also signed verso.
Condition is very good. There are light impression lines at lower side edges, but with no losses. I suspect painting was placed inside a frame before paint was dry.
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Antonio Alcantara (b. 1898-1991)
Born in Caracas on June 27, 1898, he studied painting and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Caracas, where he took classes under Cruz Álvarez García, Cirilo Almeida Crespo, and Pedro Zerpa.
Influenced by the landscape painters of the *Círculo de Bellas Artes*—and later by Emilio Boggio, under whom he studied—he exhibited a series of landscapes in 1920 that adhered to the principles of Impressionism.
Upon completing his studies at the Academy, he held an exhibition at the Club Venezuela.
He stepped away from painting for nearly twenty years, returning to it in 1945; from 1953 onward, he dedicated himself exclusively to depicting the landscapes surrounding Caracas and Macuto. Together with Pedro Ángel González and Rafael Ramón González, he belonged to a second generation of landscape painters frequently referred to as the "Caracas School."
He participated in various *Salons* in 1954 and 1955, after which he decided to embark on a second retirement to devote himself to landscape painting in the tranquility of his own home.
Thirteen years into this retirement—in 1965—he held a retrospective exhibition at the Sala Mendoza; subsequently, in 1968, a group of collector friends organized a retrospective tribute in his honor at the Gallery of Modern Art in Caracas. He exhibited in Madrid and Paris in 1970, in Washington in 1973, and in London and Hamburg in 1975. Subsequently, he participated in group exhibitions, such as the one held at the GAN in 1987 in tribute to the Círculo de Bellas Artes, and in 1990 in *Autorretratos: Laberintos de la Identidad, 1820–1989* (Self-Portraits: Labyrinths of Identity, 1820–1989).
On June 19, 1991, the National Art Gallery (GAN) inaugurated an anthological exhibition in recognition of his prolific and extensive body of work. He passed away that same year (1991).
Source: *Diccionario de las Artes Visuales en Venezuela* (Dictionary of Visual Arts in Venezuela), Monte Ávila Editores.
