Background
Armando Reverón was born on March 10, 1889, in Caracas, Venezuela. He was the only son of July Reverón Garmendia and Dolores Travieso Montilla.
Madrid, Spain
Armando Reveron entered at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1911.
Armando Reveron at work
Armando Reverón was born on March 10, 1889, in Caracas, Venezuela. He was the only son of July Reverón Garmendia and Dolores Travieso Montilla.
At age eight, Armando Reveron moved to Valencia, city of the Venezuelan interior, to a friend of the mother's family, where the young Armando began in the painting at the hands of his cousin Ricardo Montilla, who had just arrived from New York. In 1904 he contracted typhoid fever, so he returned to Caracas so that his mother take care of him. He had a long convalescence, which forced him to remain long in house dedicated to painting.
In 1908 Armando went entered the Academy of Fine Arts, where he began painting still lifes. He was expelled from school for participating in a strike against the director, the painter Antonio Herrera Toro. But he returned the following year and in 1911 graduated with distinction as well as with a scholarship to Europe. That same year after his first exhibition, Reverón went to Spain to study at the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid.
Upon his return to Caracas in 1915, Armando Reveron joined the Fine Arts Circle, a group of landscape painters strongly influenced by the Russian artist Nicolas Ferdinandov, who organized an exhibition of Reverón's work at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1919. Ferdinandov also encouraged Reverón to move to the coastal village of Macuto near Caracas, where the painter constructed a castillete ("little castle") that served as his home for the rest of his life. There he began his seascapes, which capture the bright light of the sun heating the sea.
His work falls into three periods. First, the blue period (1919 – 1924), featuring street scenes, portraits of common people, urban landscapes, and seascapes. Then the white period (1925 – 1929), which includes near monochrome white paintings of the sea, portraits of his friends, his Muse Juanita, and life-size rag dolls. Finally, his sepia period (1936 – 1949), in which his painting of female nudes and seascapes becomes much more transparent.
After 1950 his mental health deteriorated and he entered the Sanatoria San Jorge in 1953, where he died the following year. His work found a much greater audience after his death.
La Cueva
1920Paisaje
1922Un Paseo en el Parque
1922Fiesta en Carballeda
1924Cocoteros en la playa
1926Chinita de El Playón
1927Marina
1927El Playón
1929El rancho (El Caney)
1930Rostro blanco
1932El árbol
1933Juanita sentada (descanso)
1933Mujer com Mantilla
1933Dos figuras
1934Macuto Beach
1934Sunrise at Ramiro Spring
1938Woman of the River
1939Paisaje blanco
1940Playa de Macuto
1940Amanecer desde punta Brisas
1944Las indias
1947Self-Portrait with Dolls and Beard
1949Crucifixion
1950Mujer ante el espejo
1950Bajo un Uvero
Tres figuras
Untitled