Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919–1999) - Rostro

Oswaldo Guayasamín (Quito, 1919–Baltimore, 1999)
Attached is the purchase invoice from the year 1985 for 350,000 pesetas

Face / Head
Ink drawing on paper
Signed “Guayasamín” in the lower right corner
Dimensions: 25 × 21.5 cm

Expressive drawing of a human figure executed with an economy of means characteristic of Oswaldo Guayasamín’s graphic language, one of the great masters of 20th-century Latin American painting.

The composition is dominated by a frontal, elongated, and deeply distorted face, built with a rapid, nervous stroke. The large circular eyes, the vertical nose, and the half-open mouth turn the head into an almost totemic image of powerful psychological intensity. Guayasamín uses zones of intense black hatch marks to model the face, creating strong contrasts between the bare areas of the paper and the shadows that cross the forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, and the mouth.

The drawing possesses that combination of anguish, fragility, and monumentality that characterizes much of the artist’s work. The face ceases to function as an individual portrait to become a universal representation of suffering, loneliness, and the human condition, central themes in Guayasamín’s career.

The spontaneous nature of the execution is especially appealing: overlapping lines, shading achieved with rapid cross-hatching, and certain deliberate irregularities convey a sense of immediacy, as if the image had arisen directly from the artist’s gesture.

The work appears signed “Guayasamín” in the lower right, with a clearly visible handwritten signature.

Technique: ink / marker or pen on paper.
Dimensions: 25 × 21.5 cm.
Condition: good overall condition, with faint signs and small superficial marks typical of the paper and handling, visible in the photographs.