Camilo Egas

Camilo Egas (1889-September 18, 1962) was an Ecuadorian master painter and teacher, who was also active in the United States and Europe.

Camilo Alejandro Egas Silva was born in Quito, Ecuador in 1889 and grew up in the San Blas neighborhood. He studied at the San Gabriel y Mejia high schools before enrolling in the fine arts. Egas studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Quito from 1905. He stayed at the school until 1912 and studied under French impressionist painter Paul Bar and modernist sculptor Luigi Cassadio and School director lithographer Víctor Puig. In 1919, Egas studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid on a second government grant. Egas also studied in the Académie Colarossi in Paris from 1920 to 1925.

Egas returned to Ecuador in 1926 and played a pivotal role in forming the Indigenist Movement. Other indigenists artists include Diógenes Paredes, Bolívar Mena Franco, Pedro León, Eduardo Kingman and Oswaldo Guayasamin. The Indian theme seen in his work was related to the rise of Socialism and the constitution of Marxist parties in Latin America. In 1926, Egas founded Ecuador’s first art periodical journal, Hélice (Helix)., in reference to the modernist art magazines he had encountered in Paris. The magazine included, literature, short stories, cartoons and art opinions. The Ecuadorian novelist Pablo Palacio published his important short story “Un hombre muerto a puntapies” in the Helice magazine in 1926

Egas combined the Costumbrista painting tradition of Ecuador with the influences of contemporary art movements other countries. He used his knowledge of European art techniques to create dramatic, large-scale oil paintings of Andean indigenous peoples and themes, bringing Indigenismo to the European 'high art' world. Egas's ideology and aesthetic of the 1910s and 1920s connect him to Spanish modernism, a movement espoused by the School of Fine Arts at Quito, which was inspired by its modernity and nationalism.

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