Gladys Afamado

Biography

The 1974 almanac of the Montevideo Engraving Club was titled “Canción con todos”, and its cover was drawn by Gladys Afamado. The print run was banned and withdrawn from circulation: the country was then ruled by an unconstitutional military government.

She was born on 24 May 1925 in Montevideo, the second of five children. Her father, Isaac Isidoro Afamado, was a Jewish immigrant; her mother, Julia, was born in Dolores, in Soriano department, to Italian immigrants. She attended an ordinary public school, while at home the family encouraged art, literature and music. Her sister Ethel Afamado became well known in music and poetry.

She received her artistic training from Adolfo Pastor and Domingo Bazzurro at the Círculo de Bellas Artes and at the National School of Fine Arts; the classes ran from 1940 to 1950. Later came ceramics with Duncan Quintela and screen printing with Rimer Cardillo, semiotics with Jorge Medina Vidal and literature with Jorge Arbeleche. From 1945 to 1950 she studied the violin with Beatriz Tusset, and in 1951–1952 she played in the chamber orchestra “Anfión”, which Tusset directed. She worked for many years at the Montevideo Engraving Club and took part in its monthly editions and almanacs; the year she joined has been given variously as 1954, 1964 or 1965. Her female figures with large eyes are characteristic of the club’s publications. In 1984, on a competitive scholarship, she went to Spain for a course in handmade paper at Capellades, where she worked with Laurence Barker and Frederic Amat. She later used the material she mastered there in her own work. In 1986 a postgraduate course in metal engraving was held at the National Museum of Visual Arts, taught by David Finkbeiner of Purchase College, State University of New York.

Engraving brought her first major award: in 1966 the First Prize for Engraving at the National Salon of Fine Arts, and first prize at the club’s own salon. Prizes then came almost without interruption. They include awards at the National Graphic Arts Competition in 1974–1977, the Miró Award in Maldonado (1991), the Morosoli Award for Engraving (2000), the Diploma of Honor of the “Ateneo del Grabado” award (2004) and the Figari Award for her career (2008). In 1989 one of her works was bought at the Mini-Print of Cadaqués, an international exhibition of small-format prints.

Over the years her techniques diverged more and more. She made engravings on boxes and in textile artist’s books, collages, handmade paper, ceramics, interventions on stones and objects; she wove images into her poems as well. A detail from one work often becomes the main subject of another, and these repetitions look like a conversation with herself. In 2005 she won second prize at the international digital art competition “Mosto & Rojas” in Argentina. She also took part in the book and CD-ROM “Un notre web”, published in France in 1999.

She wrote poetry alongside. Her collections are “Signos vitales” (1978), “El perejil y sus adyacencias” (1983), “No espero respuesta” (1989), “Por los siglos de los siglos” (1995) and “En la casa de la espera” (1997). For “No espero respuesta” she received the First Prize of the Ministry of Education and Culture (1989), and for “En la casa de la espera” the same prize in 1995. In 1968 she received a mention at the Casa de las Américas Prize in Havana. From 1987 to 1997 she performed with her sister Ethel a solo concert, “Canción e imagen”.

In 2016 the National Museum of Visual Arts held a retrospective of her work, “Gladys Afamado: una cita sin fin”, curated by María Eugenia Grau. In 2022 the National Institute of Visual Arts named that year’s National Prize for Visual Arts after her and published a monograph, “Homenaje a Gladys Afamado”.

Afamado died on 29 December 2024.