Juan Francisco González

Juan Francisco Escobar González ( born September 25, 1853 in Santiago de Chile, † March 4, 1933 ) was a Chilean painter.

González was the first painting lessons from Manuel Tapia, who recommended him to Pedro Lira. This prepared him for entrance to, headed by Alejandro Cicarelli Academia de Bellas Artes (1869 ), where he - was a student of Ernesto Kirchbach and Juan Mochi - the same age Alfredo Valenzuela same.

After graduating in 1879 he undertook a journey through Peru and Bolivia, in 1884 he was teacher at Liceo de Hombres in Valparaíso. In 1887 he undertook his first study trip to Europe, after which he in 1990 the Chilean Ministry of Education a Texto de dibujo Moderno for use at high schools presented. The font was published in 1906 by the Universidad de Chile.

On his second trip to Europe in 1897 he visited Paris, Florence, Venice, Madrid, Seville and Marruecos, dealt with the Spanish realism of the 17th century Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism and studied the works of the painters of the Barbizon School. In 1898 he was awarded an honorary prize of the Salón Oficial de Artes Plásticas. On another trip to Europe in 1904, he met the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla know, to whom he remained friends, and gave painting classes in Munich, Frankfurt and Nuremberg.

In 1910 he became a professor at the Escuela de Bellas Artes. Among his pupils were here Joaquín Fabre, Pedro Prado, Alfredo Helsby and Pedro Reszka. In 1915 he became a member of the Grupo de los Diez, a group of avant-garde artists, poets and intellectuals. In 1919 he became President of the Executive Committee of the Sociedad Nacional de Bellas Artes.

González left more than four thousand works. A larger collection is owned by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, in 1953 organized a retrospective of his work, and in 1976 a solo exhibition. A tribute on his 50th death anniversary held in 1983, the Instituto Cultural de Providencia in Santiago.