Alirio Rodríguez

Alirio Rodríguez (4 April 1934 – 2 May 2018) was a Venezuelan painter and visual artist. Reference works and later press coverage describe him as a precursor of Venezuelan nueva figuración (New Figuration). He received Venezuela's National Painting Prize in 1969 and was commissioned to create the large stained-glass installation known as the Vitral de la Justicia for Venezuela's (then) Supreme Court building (today the Supreme Tribunal of Justice) in Caracas.

Early life and education

Rodríguez was born in El Callao (Bolívar state) on 4 April 1934, the son of Arturo Rodríguez Lozada and Teodora Borges Santi. He also worked at the Taller Libre de Arte in Caracas (1950–1952).

Career

Exhibitions

Rodríguez held his first solo exhibition in 1957 in Caracas (AVP).

In 1977, he was selected for the exhibition "Man Scape 77" at the Oklahoma Museum of Art, where he exhibited alongside Francis Bacon, Red Grooms, and Ben Shahn, among others.

Style and themes

The GAN dictionary describes Rodríguez's early work as figurative painting with "free forms" and shifting perspectives, and notes that he later favored acrylic over oil because of drying time.

During the 1960s, Rodríguez produced a succession of thematic painting series, including Metamorfosis (1961), Cosmonautas (1962), Colosos (1963), Alumbramientos (1964), Jueces (1964), Cabezas orbitantes (1966), Los egos (1967), Tribunales (1968), and Ante el abismo (1969). These works typically featured contorted human figures in ambiguous cosmic or visceral spaces, rendered through spiraling, gestural brushwork.

Public works

Vitral de la Justicia

According to the GAN dictionary, Rodríguez worked in Paris and Chartres with specialist stained-glass workshops on a stained-glass installation for Venezuela's Supreme Court building (today the TSJ), inaugurated in 1983. It describes the work as approximately 750 square metres and notes its blue-toned palette, shifting perspective effects across floors, and the use of aluminum supports and grisaille techniques; it also states that the work has been described as the largest stained-glass work in the world.

Collections

Rodríguez's work is held in the permanent collections of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, the Galería de Arte Nacional, the Museo Alejandro Otero, the Fundación Celarg, and the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin.

Awards

The following is a partial list of awards and prizes earned by Rodríguez: Later obituaries report that he published Alirio Rodríguez: De su pintura y letra in 2016.

Death

Rodríguez died in Caracas on 2 May 2018 at the age of 84. Press reports stated that he had been hospitalized for about a month with pneumonia.