Villegas: A Centenary Retrospective
Armando Villegas

Armando Villegas was a pioneer of Modern Art in Colombia, widely debated by the critics of his time, and a canonical figure in the consolidation of artistic modernity in the country. At once abstract, figurative, and magical, his vast production moves fluidly between a multiplicity of styles, themes, and materials, adopting creolization or mestizaje as a method of creation: while he often made academia, crafts, cubism, abstraction, and figuration coexist within the same painting, he didn’t fuse them.

Born in the Peruvian Andes in 1926, he grew up surrounded by Viceregal art and a strong family lineage of artisans. In the early 1950s, he arrived in Bogotá on a scholarship, and his impact on the city was immediate. Writing about his first solo exhibition in 1954, a young Gabriel García Márquez noted: “I believe I’m witnessing the early stages of an outstanding pictorial oeuvre”.

Traditional historiography has affirmed that Villegas “painted creolization [mestizaje]” via warriors, virgins, and fantastical creatures. However, this exhibition suggests a different hypothesis: namely, that in Villegas’s body of work, mestizaje is not merely a thematic or iconographic tool, but rather constitutes his semantics and compositional logic. Through his canvases, assemblages, and collages, Villegas ties different worlds and imaginaries together without fully melding them into a singular whole. By combining academic techniques with artisanal craft, he established a dialogue between Western Art History and the geometric patterns hailing from ancient Inca culture.

A professor by vocation, Villegas dedicated close to 50 years of his life to teaching in various universities in Bogotá: he was Chair of the Art Department at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and a co-founder of the Fine Arts Department at the Universidad de los Andes, where he helped shape the careers of some of the most renowned artists of the following generation. In 1993, in recognition of his contributions to art and culture in Colombia, he was granted Colombian citizenship by then-president César Gaviria.

To mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, this retrospective exhibition celebrates his legacy by gathering more than 150 of his works, spanning from the early 1950s to 2013. Throughout this journey, we may witness how he restlessly reinvented himself through hundreds of solo exhibitions and a career of more than six decades. As Villegas himself stated: “One must never allow oneself to be pigeonholed into a single category”.

About Armando Villegas

Armando Villegas was a painter, sculptor, and cultural promoter—born in Pomabamba, Peru, and a naturalized Colombian citizen—who is considered a key figure in the consolidation of modern art in Colombia. He arrived in Bogotá in 1951 to study mural painting at the National University of Colombia and spent much of his career there.

His work spanned several stages: he began by exploring abstraction in the 1950s—becoming one of its pioneers in Latin America—and later evolved toward a figurative style known as “fantastic realism.” His pieces are recognizable for their hybrid characters, warriors, and mythical figures, all rich in pre-Hispanic references, lush fauna, and an intense color palette.

Address Calle 24 #6-00, Bogotá, Colombia

Opening Hours

Tuesday to Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Last admission: 5:15 p.m.
Sundays and public holidays: 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Last admission: 4:15 p.m.
* Closed on Mondays and on Tuesdays following a public holiday.

For further information:

Amalia López Siegert
Communications Coordinator, MAMBO
coordinacion.comunicaciones@mambogota.com
(+57) 318 838 0149

Estefanía Otavo
Communications Assistant, MAMBO
comunicaciones@mambogota.com
(+57) 305 738 7471