Gerardo Chávez

Biography

In 1981 the Museum of Italian Art in Lima devoted a large exhibition to Gerardo Chávez. No living Peruvian artist had been given such an honour before.

He was born in Trujillo on 16 November 1937, the son of Pedro Chávez and Rosa Estela López. Part of his childhood was spent in Paiján, a little over fifty kilometres north of the city. His elder brother Ángel Chávez López (1928–1995) was also a painter.

In 1955 Chávez entered the National School of Fine Arts in Lima and graduated in 1959. That same year his first solo exhibition was held at the National University of Trujillo, and he represented his country at the First Paris Biennale. In 1960 he set out for Europe: Naples, Pompeii, Rome, then Florence, where he lived for about a year. From 1962 he lived in Paris. In 1966 he showed work at the Venice Biennale and in Bologna. His 1967 exhibition at the Jacques Desbrieres gallery in Paris, with a strongly marked social theme, led to shows in Milan, Amsterdam and especially Brussels. In 1968 he returned to Lima and exhibited in the city’s main galleries. His interest in archaic art took him to Easter Island and to the caves of Altamira and Tassili. Of the large canvases of the 1960s, “The Creation of the New Man” (La creación del nuevo hombre) and “Morning Star” (Estrella del amanecer) are named; of the works of the 1980s, “The Last Idol” (El último ídolo) and “Mama”, inspired by motifs of the Chancay culture. In his painting, writers note expressive freedom, bold handling of colour and distinct echoes of the earth and of ancient Indigenous cultures. He drew inspiration from the pre-Columbian and shamanic myths of northern Peru and saw himself at the meeting point of the Indigenous-mestizo and European traditions. I would only add that these are words about him, not his own.

In 1983 Chávez created the First Biennial of Contemporary Art in Trujillo. From the late 1980s he divided his life between Paris and Lima, and in his last years he settled in Peru for good. He is described as one of the direct successors of the North Group, an artistic circle that formed in Trujillo in the first half of the twentieth century.

Among his solo exhibitions are galleries in Florence, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Verona, Milan, Basel and Caracas; the 19th São Paulo Biennial; and museums in Montevideo, Santo Domingo, Long Beach and Lima, including the Pedro de Osma Museum. His group shows included the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, the Grand Palais, the 42nd Venice Biennale, and museums in Mexico City, Nagoya, Baghdad and Bochum. His works are held in museums and private collections in Europe and the Americas, and monographic studies of his work have been published.

In 2001 the Toy Museum opened in Trujillo. Later Chávez founded the Museum of Modern Art, the first in Peru conceived and built as a museum of that kind; it stands at kilometre five of the road to Laredo and holds chiefly the artist’s own paintings and sculptures. The Gerardo Chávez Foundation, created in 2006 and legally constituted on 2 March 2007, runs this museum and the Cultural Space “Angelmira”, named in memory of his brother. Chávez also chaired the board for art and culture of Trujillo.

In 2012 he was recognised as the most important Peruvian artist then at work.

Gerardo Chávez died in Trujillo on 22 June 2025, aged 87.