Felipe Seade (1912 – 18 January 1969) was a

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

of Lebanese descent who spent most of his life in

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

.Felipe Seade
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Biography

Seade was born in

Antofagasta, Chile Antofagasta () is a port city in northern Chile, about north of Santiago. It is the capital of Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region. According to the 2015 census, the city has a population of 402,669. Once claimed by Bolivia followi ...

, the elder son of a Lebanese immigrant family. Eleven years later his whole family moved to

Montevideo Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

. At the age of 12 Seade began working as an assistant to the

Mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

ist Enrique Albertazzi and the

Guillermo Rodríguez. Under Rodríguez' influence Seade took some painting courses at the Fine Arts Circle school. He had his first show in 1925. From 1931 well into the 1950s Seade presented work in many national and city

hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...

s. In 1944, Seade began his parallel career as a

. He first work as teacher of drawing at the Liceo de Colonia, where he managed to paint the large mural, '' Alegoría al Trabajo'' (1936), and later as a professor of the Montevideo Fine Arts School, where he taught for 25 years. It is impossible to understand Seade's artistic life without a reference to his political life. He wanted to paint for "the people, not for the walls of the bourgeoisie". He aspired to paint

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

s, the preferred way for his generation to reach the masses, but the only murals he managed to finish were the one in Colonia and the ''La marcha del Pueblo à la Piedra Alta'' (1939) at the Conference Hall of the Liceo de Florida. However, a significant part or Seade's work is formed by his sketches of murals and preparity sketches for murals. Thematically, Seade mostly sought to represent the characters of Uruguayan life – washing women, ''Gauchos'', soccer fans, kids and women. Not from a tourist perspective, which he despised, but with the passion of a convinced

social realist Social realism is work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers, filmmakers and some musicians that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures ...

. Seade was also an expert draughtsman. His most public work was a long series of illustrations for a key local magazine, ''Mundo Uruguayo''. His more private drawings were mostly sketches for paintings. Although Seade had an active participation in Salons and through his teaching was one of the more visible artists of Uruguay in his time, he disliked and avoided the world of galleries and art critics. This is probably one reason why after his death he has remained in relative obscurity. Important critics and historians such as Gabriel Peluffo Linari, Fernando García Esteban and Atahualpa del Cioppo have recognised Seade's cultural importance.

References

External links

Felipe Seade Web Site
including many examples of his work. {{DEFAULTSORT:Seade, Felipe 1912 births 1969 deaths Chilean emigrants to Uruguay Chilean people of Lebanese descent Uruguayan people of Lebanese descent Chilean illustrators Social realist artists 20th-century Uruguayan painters 20th-century Uruguayan male artists Uruguayan male artists Male painters 20th-century Chilean painters Chilean male artists 20th-century Chilean male artists

Biography

See also

References

External links