"El Baile" by Ernesto Gutierrez, 2005, oil on jute, signed lower right

Art Size: 18" x 14"
Frame Size: 26 7/8" x 22 7/8"

Artist Bio:

Ernesto Gutierrez was born in Lima, Peru in 1941, his father a Spaniard, and his mother a descendant of the Incas. In 1971, he came to Milwaukee to study art on a Fulbright Scholarship and received a Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1974. Gutierrez is also a noted historian of Pre-Columbian culture, writer and illustrator who has received several awards for his printmaking and painting. Gutierrez has been influenced by Pre-Columbian forms, native-popular Peruvian art, and by modern French masters such as Cezanne, Gaugin and Matisse as well as Rembrandt and Botero. The bold colors that are used by Gutierrez- bright pink, chartreuse, mauves, blues, purples, and greens, sometimes underlined and accented with black, maize and pure white, add to the dramatic effect. “The most important part of a painting to me is the color, and then the subject”, notes Gutierrez. His sensibility strikes as essentially Spanish while his inspiration derives from his Inca heritage, Peruvian landscapes, folklore and textiles.