Alejandro Colina

Alejandro Colina (1901–1976) was a Venezuelan sculptor.

Alejandro Colina, a Venezuelan sculptor, was born in Caracas on February 8, 1901. Colina is one of the greatest exponents of Venezuelan monumental sculpture and framed much of his work within the cultural heritage of indigenous communities, with their sculptures celebrating the myths, legends, gods and chieftains of the tribes in Venezuela. He died in 1976 at the age of 75 years. His most famous works are the statue of Maria Lionza, and the whole of the Ciudad Universitaria in Caracas.

Alejandro Colina's parents were Alejandro Torcuato Colina, from Falcón State; and Fermina Viera, a Spanish lady originally from Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Colina began his artistic development at the Academy of Fine Arts in Caracas at 13 years old. For seventeen years he worked as a mechanic for merchant ships, and as such, traveled for more than a decade. In 1919, he returned to Caracas and began to study at the School of Arts and Crafts in Caracas, where his works were exhibited and he became the Deputy Director of the institute.

In 1920, Colina decided to leave Caracas and moved to La Guajira, in Zulia State, where he coexisted with the indigenous peoples of the West of the country for eight years. During this time, he was devoted to taking notes and studying the ways, customs and legends of the local communities. Colina returned to Caracas, powerfully influenced by his long cohabitiation with the indigenous peoples, who were to become the main themes for his work. Once back in the capital, Colina married Alejandrina Issa, who gave birth to his two sons.

At the end of the 1920s, Colina began to develop the Monument to the Liberator: the sculptural work to which he would devote much of his life. In 1931, Colina became the assistant to the Venezuelan architect, Alejandro Chataing. In 1933, Colina created the sculpture Tacarigua Plaza, located in the Mariscal Sucre Air Base in the city of Maracay. Colina later faced accusation of being a Communist by the then president Juan Vicente Gómez, and was held at the Libertador Castle, Puerto Cabello, where in 1936 the poet Andrés Eloy Blanco was going to give a speech in occasion of the liberation of all political prisoners held by the Gómez dictatorship.

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