NARVAEZ Francisco

Porlamar, Venezuela, October 4, 1905
Caracas, Venezuela, July 7, 1982

 

Narvaez 1956

Francisco NARVÁEZ

Forma, 1956

Wood
18 7/8 x 13 x 6 5/16 in. (48 x 33 x 16 cm.)

Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas- Campus of the Central University of Venezuela, which was designed by the architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva. Construction began in 1944 and the campus was formally inaugurated in 1954, although works were ongoing for a long time after that. Villanueva developed within the boundaries of this masterpiece of modern architecture his personal vision of the Corbusian idea of a “synthesis of the arts,” according to which man and his active involvement (rather than a simply expectant attitude) are the main links between architecture, sculpture and painting. In his project, Villanueva worked with Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Armando Barrios, Omar Carreño, Carlos González Bogen, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, Mateo Manaure, Francisco Narváez, Pascual Navarro, Alejandro Otero, Víctor Valera and Victor Vasarely, among others.

Criollismo- This term, and the analogous nativism (both borrowed from literary criticism), are used in the history of Venezuelan art to refer to a figurative movement, mainly relative to sculpture, that focused on models of indigenous or African descent. It emerged in the 1920s, and its main exponents were Alejandro Colina and Francisco Narváez, although the latter integrated such autochthonous models with modern expression.

Francisco Narvez began his education at his father’s workshop and continued it at the Academia de Bellas Artes in Caracas (1922-1928) and the Acadmie Julian in Paris (1928-1931). Returning to Caracas, he began to search for a sculptural form that could integrate Venezuelan subjects and modern expression, thus placing himself as a leading figure of the criollista movement. His were characterized by vernacular motifs and sensuality of form and volume. Several of them were designed for public places, including the fountains at the Parque Carabobo (1933) and the Plaza O’ Leary (Las Toninas, 1943) in Caracas, as well as the great wood statues he produced for the World’s Fair (1939) in New York, today they are displayed at the Liceo Fermn Toro and the Liceo Andrs Bello, in Caracas. In 1941, Narvez received the Premio Nacional de Escultura, and, in 1948, the Premio Nacional de Pintura. His established him as a leader of modernism in Venezuela. Beginning in 1949, he participated in Carlos Raul Villanueva’s project at the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas. The monumental stone statue El atleta, located in the Olympic Stadium, 1951, marked the culmination of this creative period.

Narvez embarked on a new direction known as “new forms,” represented at the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas by the bronze sculpture called La Cultura (1954) and in the works included in the exhibition Formas nuevas y Raices (Sala Mendoza, Caracas, 1956-1957). Anecdotal contentent tended to disappear while the human figure became more streamlined and the precision of its depiction diminished although vague references to its anatomy persist as his works approached organic abstraction. It was not, however, a linear evolution. Narvez approached and moved away time and time again from the abstract form, and in the most ambiguous territories, he produced the masterpieces of the period, among them the sculpture Figura Acfala (1966).

In the series Ochavados, presented at the exhibition Maderas y piedras ochavadas (Sala Mendoza, 1970), the figure was represented in a simple way and the material gained importance. Convinced that the action of carving and the use of certain materials created their own speech, Narvez adopted abstraction. Thus began his work called “volumes,” in which he used large blocks of heavy material that took on the appearance of ancestral monoliths. At this time, he also reproduced in bronze some of his abstract stone and wood pieces. As the media changed the works became something akin to conceptual art. His last great sculptures for public spaces were El Gran Volumen/ Energa (Amuay, 1981) and Armona de volmenes y espacios (Estacin La Hoyada, Metro de Caracas, 1982).

In 2005, on the occasion of the centenary of Narvez’s birth, the Galera de Arte Nacional de Caracas presented an exhibition dedicated to the first stage of his career, titled Francisco Narvez. Figuracin y expresin (1930-1950). En el centenario de su nacimiento.