Jaime Colson

Jaime Colson (1901 – November 20, 1975) was a modernist painter from the Dominican Republic. Along with Yoryi Morel and Darío Suro, he is considered one of the founders of the modernist school of Dominican painting.

Early life, education and career

Born in San Felipe de Puerto Plata, Jaime Colson moved to Spain in 1918 where he studied art in Madrid and Barcelona. He lived in Paris from 1924 to 1934, where he was greatly influenced by Cubists. Primarily a figurative artist, Colson experimented with several different artistic styles, including Cubism, Surrealism, and Neoclassicism. His artistic friends included Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. After a short but intense stay in Cuba, Colson developed a close friendship with the Cuban painter Mario Carreño Morales. Return to Europe and held between Paris and Spain, there remains some 10 years (1939–1949). Haiti and Venezuela were also in their life course.

In his pictograph blend cubism, surrealism, symbolism, expressionism, neoclassicism. Meticulous technique and his work fueled academic borders, located between the classic and the cutting edge, and where one breathes an atmosphere of unreality or metaphysics. Here the internal composition and expressive strokes delineated from the geometric are essential. From the real to the abstract and this reality again summarized in his own words, the method from which made his paintings. They dominated the exaltation of the human body as opposed to mechanistic progress that can only lead to death, which is why his work has been described as neo-humanist.

He also wrote poetry and plays. He is one of the great painters of 20th-century Latin America.

Death and legacy

Colson died of throat cancer in Santo Domingo.

A retrospective of his work was held at Museo Bellapart in Santo Domingo in 2008.

References

• La Pintura Moderna at the Museo Bellapart
• Veerle Poupeye. Caribbean Art. London; Thames and Hudson; 1998.

External links

• Colson exhibition catalog (PDF format) Museo Bellapart