Carlos Mauricio Valenti Perrillat

Carlos Valenti
Picture Carlos Valenti - 1912
Born	Carlos Mauricio Valenti Perrillat (1888-11-15)November 15, 1888 Paris,  France
Died	October 29, 1912(1912-10-29) (aged 23) Paris,  France
Nationality	French
Education	Kess Van Dongen, Anglada Camarasa, Academy Vitti (Art school)
Known for	Painter
Movement	Expressionism

Carlos Mauricio Valenti Perrillat (November 15, 1888 in Paris – October 29, 1912 in Paris) was a French-born painter, who worked predominantly in Guatemala. An artist with the gift of an undeniable talent who, in spite of living within the moral repressions and strict conventional customs of a Guatemalan time outlined by a dictatorship (Manuel Estrada Cabrera), he was able to develop one of the most important works for art history in the 20th century. He is considered as pioneer of modern Guatemalan art.

Born in Paris on November 15, 1888, he was the third son of Carlos Valenti Sorie, born in Italy, and Helena Perrillat-Bottonet, born in Le Grand Bornand, Haute-Savoie, France. Valenti arrived to Guatemala together with his mother and two brothers to join his father, who was already living in the country since 1888. Since he was a child, he stood out as a brilliant and ingenious student, and was awarded a gold medal as the best student. He was the favorite piano student of professor Herculano Alvarado. Later on, as a student at the Fine Arts Academy, he awed professor Santiago González because of his excellent drawing ability.

Valenti was part of a group of artists, poets, and writers like Carlos Wyld Ospina, Rafael Rodríguez Padilla, Rafael Arévalo Martínez, Rafael Yela Günther, the De la Riva siblings and Carlos Mérida, who worked very closely with Jaime Sabartés, Catalan who came to Guatemala from Barcelona, who held a close friendship with Pablo Picasso, and worked as his private secretary since 1935. Among that group of gifted artists, Valenti was like the lighthouse that illuminated everything, who knew how to be a friend and who became one of the masters. At 22, he already had what was called “a style”. His authentic genius expressed itself from his beginnings without hesitation, without wavering. For the time Valenti lived in, his work had an unlimited daring boldness. Since he took the pencil, his stroke was categorical and final. Through his art, Valenti’s art expressed a feeling, transmitting his own internal vision. During his learning stage, his work was samples of skill and ability using academic models supported on traditional methods. It is precisely in his oil landscape paintings where we find a gentle Valenti, and in contradiction with a suicidal figure of his last days.