Borges, Jacobo (1931–)

Jacobo Borges (b. 28 November 1931), Venezuelan artist. Born in a rural area near Caracas, Borges attended only primary school. In 1949–1951 he studied painting at the Cristóbal Rojas School of Fine and Applied Arts in Caracas while simultaneously working for an advertising agency and drawing comic strips. In 1952 he won a scholarship from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as part of a promotion of its film An American in Paris to study in Paris, where he joined the Young Painters' group and developed an expressionist style with social and political implications. Upon his return to Caracas in 1956, he became a very active artist and soon held his first solo exhibition. Selected as one of the Venezuelan entries to the São Paulo Bienal in 1957, he won an honorable mention. From 1957 until 1965 he was a member of the Round Table Group and Whale Group cooperative. From 1965 until 1971, Borges stopped painting and devoted himself to theater and film design. He returned to painting in 1971, and five years later an exhibition of forty-eight of his canvasses, "Magic of a Realist Critic," was presented in Caracas and Mexico City. He wrote and illustrated The Mountain and Its Era (1979). In 1988 he represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennale and was included in the Latin American Spirit show at the Bronx Museum, New York, and the Guggenheim Museum exhibit, "Fifty Years: Anniversary Collection." Major retrospectives of his work have been held in the Staatliche Kunsthalle (Berlin, 1987) and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Caracas, 1988). In Caracas in 1994, the Museo Jacobo Borges opened to honor his life's work.

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roldán Esteva Grillet, Siete artistas venezolanos siglo XX: Rafael Monasterios, Armando Reverón, Héctor Poleo, Alejandro Otero, Carlos Cruz Diez, Jesús Soto y Jacobo Borges (1984).

Jacobo Borges (CDS Gallery, New York, 1990), with introductory essays by Carlos Fuentes and Dore Ashton.

Additional Bibliography

Acha, Juan. "Jacobo Borges: Del grito al espacio alegórico." Revista Nacional de la Cultura (Venezuela) 51 (Jan-Mar 1990): 241-254.

Borges, Jacobo, and Carter Ratliff. 60 obras de Jacobo Borges: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Internacionál Rufiño Tamayo, Ciudad de México, México Agosto-Octubre 1987: de la Pesca- al Espejo de aguas: [exposición itinerante]. Monterrey: Museo de Monterrey, 1987.

Borges, Jacobo. Jacobo Borges. Buenos Aires: Der Brücke Ediciones, 1990.

Esteva Grillet, Roldán. Siete artistas venezolanos del siglo XX: Rafael Monasterios, Armando Reverón, Héctor Poleo, Alejandro Otero, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Soto y Jacobo Borges. Mérida, Venezuela: Museo de Arte Moderno de Mérida, 1984.

                                         BÉlgica RodrÍguez