Santos Chavez Alister Carinao

Santos Chávez (1934-2001) was a Mapuche printmaker and painter from Chile, known for his engravings and woodcuts.

Background Santos Segundo Chávez Alíster was born on February 7, 1934, in a small town of Canihual, between Tirúa and Quidico in the Región del Biobío, Chile. He was Mapuche, the indigenous people of central and southern Chile and southern Argentina. His father was a huinca or traditional chieftain, while his mother was Mapuche and Scottish. Santos was the youngest of seven and his given name was Santos Chávez Mac Alister Curinao. and his mother died when he was 12. His work was featured in the First Biennial Exhibition of Indigenous Art and Culture.

Collections Chávez's work is included in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Montevideo; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Museum of the American Indian; and state museums in Nicaragua and Berlin.

Quotes "They threw me out twice [of the Sociedad]. They said I was no good. That I should take up something else. But I kept going back. They had no choice but to let me [stay]. The people who had studied in Paris or London could not accept the idea that a man with the face of an Indian like me could draw, engrave, paint." —Santos Chávez

"I am a particle in the cosmos, what are we in the planetary system, in infinite space? …Balance, harmony, sense, symbolism, poetry… It is my entire childhood, alone in the country, the world I interpret in my work. In the distance a window opens up […I cannot say 'I know it all,' so I keep working, suffering and seeking to find that indescribable thing that one searches for…" —Santos Chávez