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Who’s Alfredo Boulton?
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| “Self Portrait”, Alfredo Boulton, 1938 |
Alfredo Boulton (1908-1995) was one of the most prominent Venezuelan intelletuals of the 20th century, author of a wide production dedicated to the history and art of his country. His career began toward 1928 upon his return to Venezuela, after studying in Europe during five years. He then dedicated himself to photography, capturing images of the valley of Caracas, a city that was rapidly expanding beyond its colonial boundaries. His interest in visual arts led him to become part of a circle of the most prominent artists of the moment, such as Armando Reverón, Francisco Narváez and Manuel Cabré.
Parallel to his photographic activity, He devoted himself to the study of Venezuelan art, culminating in the publication of his History of Venezuelan Painting, the first systematic attempt to comprehend artistic production from the Colonial period to the 1970′s. Later on he published Art in Aboriginal Venezuelan Ceramics, as well as, on a series of monographs of the most distinguished artists of the 20th century. His work also includes iconographic studies on the Venezuelan Fathers of Independence, particularly Simón Bolívar, Francisco de Miranda, Antonio José de Sucre and José Antonio Páez.
In 1908, when Alfredo Boulton was born in Caracas into a wealthy family of merchants, the Venezuelan capital was still a small Caribbean town. Its appearance differed little from the modest colonial community that had existed for over 300 years. 1908 also marks – with the incipient dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez – the end of the continuous civil wars that had plagued Venezuela since the second half of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
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| Monceau Park, 1920 |
In 1920, following family tradition, inherited from his mother of French origin and his father of English origin, Alfredo Boulton travelled to Europe where he studied in Switzerland and England until 1928. His interest in photography led him to study the work of the most important photographers of the time, especially Man Ray, who was a strong influence on his first creative period.
In 1928, he returned to a country where a new generation was dreaming of modernity, both political, in opposition to the dictatorship, and cultural, by forming groups concerned with laying the bases of an authentically South American, criole concept of beauty. Like the intellectuals and artists of his generation in Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico and other latin countries, Alfredo Boulton was seeking to create an image that would reflect the ethnic, geographical and cultural characteristics of Latin America. Photography was his vehicle to shape this generational need.
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| The little square, Chacao, 1930 | Caracas seen from El Calvario, 1938 | Alfredo in Los Llanos, 1948 |