Oscar Rodríguez Naranjo (1907–2006) was a painter from Socorro,

Santander Department Santander () is a department of Colombia. Santander inherited the name of one of the nine original states of the United States of Colombia. It is located in the central northern part of the country, borders the Magdalena River to the east, Bo ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. His works include mainly

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

s and

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

s. Rodríguez Naranjo studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bogotá. Owing to the talent he displayed he was able to obtain scholarships for the

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

and the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière () is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the A ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He came back from

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and settled in

Bucaramanga Bucaramanga () is the capital and largest city of the department of Santander Department, Santander, Colombia. Bucaramanga has the fifth-largest economy by GDP in Colombia, has the lowest unemployment rate and is the ninth most populous city i ...

. Rodríguez Naranjo taught at the art school while he made a number of paintings that would build up his reputation in Colombia. In 1941 he became the Director of the Academia de Bellas Artes in Bucaramanga. The main themes of his paintings were

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

s, including religious figures,

nude Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. While estimates vary, for the first 90,000 years of pre-history, anatomically modern humans were naked, having lost their body hair, living in hospitable climates, and no ...

s and

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

s. Rodríguez Naranjo was one of the most outstanding and representative artists of the Colombian Santander region.

Sculptures

Some of Rodríguez Naranjo's most notable sculptures are: * José Antonio Galán statue, located in the main park in Socorro *

María Antonia Santos Plata María Antonia Santos Plata (10 April 1782–28 June 1819) was a Neogranadine peasant, rebel leader, and heroine. Santos Plata was born in 1782 in the town of Pinchote, in what is now modern-day Colombia. In the late 1810s, she helped galv ...

, one of the great figures of the Colombian Independence Struggle, sculpture, located in the main park in

San Gil San Gil is a town and municipality in the Department of Santander in northeastern Colombia, located roughly 300 km (192 mi) from Bogotá and 95 km from the department's capital, Bucaramanga. As of 2020, San Gil had a population of 5 ...

Exhibitions and Public Collections

These are some of his most important collections:''Forma y Color Colombia'' Magazine, Editor: Eduardo Bastidas Peña, Editorial Ártico Bogotá 1995 *1929: Casa del Estudiante, Bogotá *1931: I Salón de Artistas Colombianos, Bogotá *1933: Centro de Historia de Santander, Bucaramanga *1938: Académie Julian Yearly Exhibition, Paris, France *1943: Muestra Annual, Academia de Bellas Artes, Colegio Santander, Bucaramanga *1945: Muestra de la Academia de Bellas Artes, Bucaramanga *1951: Museo de Antioquia, Medellín *1959: Exposición de Artistas Santandereanos, Bucaramanga *1963: Banco de la República, Bucaramanga. *1975: Paisaje, Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM), Bogotá *1981: Antología 365 años de Pintura en Santander, Corporación Cultural Luis Perú De la Croix, Bucaramanga. *1981: Retrospectiva, Retratos, Cámara de Comercio, Bucaramanga *1983: Artistas del Socorro, Casa de la Cultura, El Socorro, Santander. *1987: Paisaje en Santander, Banco de la República, Bucaramanga. *1994: Forma y Color Colombia, Hotel La Fontana, Bogotá. *2006: Forma y Color Colombia, Galería Actualidad, Bucaramanga

Bibliography

* Dario Ortiz, ''Oscar Rodríguez Naranjo, the painter of beauty'' (1996)

References

External links

Oscar Rodríguez Naranjo, pintor

Colarte - Oscar Rodríguez Naranjo sculpture
1907 births Colombian sculptors 2006 deaths Alumni of the Académie de la Grande Chaumière Académie Julian alumni 20th-century Colombian sculptors 20th-century Colombian painters 20th-century Colombian male artists People from Santander Department Colombian male painters {{Colombia-sculptor-stub