Noe Canjura

Noé Canjura ( born August 14, 1922 in Apopa, El Salvador, † September 29, 1970 in Morienval, France ) was a Salvadoran painter.

Getting Started

Canjura was born in 1922 in Apopa, a town in El Salvador in Central America. The family came from modest circumstances. He therefore grew up under adverse circumstances and knew the struggle to eradicate poverty and misery, which was performed in his home country.

To facilitate his self-sacrificing parents the load and to provide for his education, Canjura earned his livelihood in a sawmill. He often worked late into the night and had to sleep on hard, raw wooden boards. When he was seventeen years old, his talent was discovered. And so - without knowing how or why, his adventure began in the world of art at international level. His first, he studied in the Academy of Valero Lecha drawing and painting ( Academia de Dibujo y Pintura Valero Lecha ) in San Salvador ( 1942-1946 ). After he began in 1942 there Canjura participated in all sorts of collective exhibitions of his college in El Salvador and a few years later, he should do so in Guatemala.

To continue his studies, he traveled to Mexico City in 1948, where he was largely influenced by Diego Rivera, who had arrived along with Orozco and Siqueiros at the height of his fame. The influence Rivera was low and Canjura then turned his attention to Gauguin. He became acquainted with the concept of a formal order in the painting and the use of the curves know. That same year, he performed his first exhibition in the United States.

Life in Paris

Canjuras life changed drastically in 1949, when he went to France to enroll there in the College of Fine Arts, and in order to graduate professional studies on the technique of fresco painting. He received a state scholarship to support from his home country.

While he was in Paris, he was strongly attracted to the works of Coubert and Le Nain. Nevertheless, he always stuck to themes that constitute the everyday life and customs of his native country.

In 1953 he led in Paris by his first solo exhibition with great success; from then on, France became his adopted home. Life in Paris was initially difficult. Like many others, he had to exert various handicraft works to secure its existence. He married Madeleine Bachelet, who was just as he worked as an artist in the visual arts. This facilitated him to carry out his work with discipline and to pay more attention to his works. The personality Canjuras was torn: between his abilities as a painter on the one hand and his perfectionist nature on the other.

The strong influence of his years in Paris became clear when Canjura 1957 El Salvador visited briefly. He took his country from a new perspective true, and from then on was the emphasis on the colors and the light become an important part of his work. The painting Canjuras was now a synthesis of the many influences that shaped his character and his deep work. His paintings are equally dramatic as well as nostalgic. Powerful, but also the same in every detail and with great subtlety he composed simple color drawings that suggest the principle of abstraction.

The fact that the city of Paris bought four of his paintings in six years (1959-1965) for their permanent exhibition, is another indication of its position in the world of art in Paris and for the continuous development of his work.

Canjura was a member of the National Society of Fine Arts ( Societé Nationale des Beaux -arts ) and the Society of the salon for Young Painting ( Societé de la Jeune Peinture de salon ). He exhibited regularly and with unquestionable popularity in the major galleries in Paris. His paintings were purchased for the collections of the French state, then later transferred to the National Art Museum in San Salvador, MARTE. Likewise, the museum Hamishka Leomanuth acquired in Ein Harod, Israel, and his works. In 1965 he was awarded the coveted prize, a silver medal, " Prune d' Argent", given the gallery painter of Provence (Salon de Provence Peintres ).

Morienval

Noé Canjura died on 29 September 1970 at the age of 48 years in Morienval, France, in the full development of his profession. His remains are in the cemetery of the church of Notre -Dame in Morienval ( Ancient Abbey, two hours from Paris ). His daughter Leticia Canjura and his granddaughter Vilma Borden, living in Atlanta in the United States.

Together with Julia Diaz, Raúl Elas Reyes and Rosa Mena Valenzuela applies Canjura as an icon of his generation, at the time one of the largest movements of painting in El Salvador. But most of all Canjura symbolizes the ability of people to reinvent itself: the young, barefoot art student who lives modestly and with many restrictions, it became a powerful creator of his own destiny in a hard, demanding environment at the world level.

Wally Findlay, president of the Findlay Galleries (New York and Chicago) said about Canjura: