Alfredo Da Silva

Alfredo Da Silva
Self portrait, Pencil and Ink, 1986 DC.
Born	(1935-02-20) February 20, 1935 (age 81) New York City
Nationality	Potosi, Bolivia, South America
Education	Potosí Academy of Fine Arts. Arts university Tomas Frias. Prilidiano Pueyredon Academy of Fine Arts. Pratt Institute of New York.
Known for	Fine Artist Painter Graphic Artist, Painting, Drawing, Photography, Sculpture
Notable work	Space Time
Movement	Abstract Expressionism, Watercolor
Spouse(s)	Joan Da Silva (m. 1965; div. 1987)
Awards	1961, Pan American Fellowship 1963, Guggenheim Fellowship 1964, Pratt Graphic Center Grant
Website	www.alfredodasilva.com

Alfredo Da Silva (born February 20, 1935) is a painter, graphic artist, and photographer, known for his abstract expressionism. He came to international prominence in 1959.

Alfredo Da Silva was born February 20, 1935 during the end of an inconclusive Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay. In 1938 a peace treaty was signed in Buenos Aires between Paraguay and Bolivia. After Chaco War, Bolivia was struggling to find some form of Democracy for the indigenous Indians that made up a large demographic. Many political parties tried to take power. Violent coups and counter-revolutions followed, but in 1952 Victor Paz Estenssoro left-wing Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario the MNR succeeds in seizing power. "Alfredo Da Silva was almost unknown in his own country until he went abroad and won the highest award for a foreign artist at the 1959 National Salon in Buenos Aires". In 1960 he was discovered by José Gómez Sicre who at the time was Chief of the Division of Visual Arts for the Pan American Union now called the Organization of American States or OAS for short. In 1961 José Gómez Sicre invited him to have a one-man show at the Pan American Union Gallery in Washington D.C organized by the Organization of American States. He was close friends with a celebrated Bolivian sculptor Marina Núñez del Prado who wrote about him in her book "Eternidad en Los Andes". He is recognized as one of the historical "generation of 52" by The National Art Museum (MNA). The generation of 52 is marked by the Bolivian National Revolution which occurred on April 9, 1952. The generation of 52 had two main artistic trends, the "social painters" and the "abstract painters". Alfredo was part of the movement of abstract painters that did not accept social realism as the only mode for artistic expression. According to Babs Myer from the "Times of Brazil" "Accepting "abstract expressionism" as the label most nearly describing his art, da Silva works from a base of "intuition creation," expressing a world of intuition with rational shapes. He fuses the ancient past with the far distant future and creates a sense of time itself moving to the future or to the past, but always of one continuous whole. The circle, is always evident, and one may recognize ancient Indian building stones, fossilized bones, or structures for man's use in some misty future in space". Later in 1981 his abstract work is recognized by Teresa Gisbert (Director of the institute of Bolivian Studies at the University of San Andres in La Paz, Bolivia), she described his work as "Outstanding for his treatment of surface qualities and his abstractionism".