Hernando Tejada Sáenz (February 1, 1924 in Pereira,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...

– June 1, 1998 in

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...

), popularly known as Tejadita, was a Colombian painter and sculptor. His most well-known sculpture, '' El Gato del Río'', is a famous landmark of Cali, Colombia. Women and cats were common themes in his works. In his later years, another theme was the inclusion of

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

s and their surrounding environment. His nickname of ''tejadita'' alludes to his short stature (1.50 meters tall).

Biography

Museo La Tertulia - Colección - El arte como experiencia 04

His early childhood life was in

Manizales Manizales () is a city in central Colombia. It is the capital of the Department of Caldas, and lies near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano. Currently, the city is the main center for the production of Colombian coffee and an important hub for higher ...

, along with his parents, José Tejada and Ismenia Sáenz, four brothers, and two sisters, including Lucy Tejada who was also an accomplished artist, and less recognized, his sister Teresita Tejada. In 1937 his family moved to the city of Cali where he studied at the Departmental Institute of Fine Arts with its founder and Professor Jesús María Espinosa and completed his studies at the National School of Fine Arts in

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

(today a part of the

National University of Colombia The National University of Colombia () is a national public research university in Colombia, with general campuses in Bogotá, Medellín, Manizales and Palmira, and satellite campuses in Leticia, San Andrés, Arauca, Tumaco, and La Paz ...

). Besides traditional painting, Tejada often worked with wood. He created a series of "furniture-piece" women, such as ''Teresa la mujer mesa'' ("Teresa the woman table") in 1969. For one of his final wooden series, he sculpted mangroves and animals together, including snakes, monkeys, and pelicans. His mangrove series was exhibited at the 1998 Lisbon World Exposition in Portugal. His last bronze sculpture was ''El Gato del Río'', also known as ''El Gato de Tejada'' ("Tejada's Cat"). The sculpture is over three meters tall and three tons. It is located on the riverside of the

Cali River The Cali River is a river of western Colombia. It flows through the city of Cali and drains into the Cauca River. Its headwaters are in the Farallones de Cali of the Cordillera Occidental. See also *List of rivers of Colombia Atlantic Ocean ...

and was gifted by Tejada to the city. He died in Cali in 1998 after 43 days of hospitalization. After his death, his family sought to donate more than 3,000 paintings and 70 large works of art by the artist to art or cultural institutions in Cali. However, at the time of his death there was no serious interest in receiving his family's donation. In 2006, the Medellín Museum of Modern Art accepted the donation, including the artist's former house.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tejada, Hernando 1924 births 1998 deaths People from Pereira, Colombia Naïve art 20th-century Colombian painters 20th-century Colombian male artists Sibling artists Colombian male painters