(b Turmero, nr Maracay, 22 Aug 1919; d Caracas, 20 Feb 1993). Venezuelan painter and sculptor. From 1943 to 1947 he studied drawing and painting in the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas, Caracas. He was a founder-member of the Taller Libre de Arte, taking part in its activities from 1949 to 1952. His paintings, always within a figurative framework, are marked by a pursuit of the magical and of indigenous roots. In his early work he was interested in the themes of roosters and flowers, using the surrounding environment as a source of inspiration. He expressed human, animal and vegetable existence in strong, warm colours (e.g. The Rooster, 1951; Caracas, Gal. A. N.). In 1952 Abreu moved to Europe, visiting Spain and Italy and living in Paris until 1962, when he returned to Venezuela. In Europe his contact with the Musée de l’Homme in Paris and with Surrealism produced a profound transformation in his work. He created his first Magical Objects in 1960, and he continued to make these throughout the 1960s, in circular and rectangular forms and with varied subject-matter made out of domestic and industrial materials, including refuse. The best known of these objects are Souvenir of Hiroshima (c. 1965) and I, Mario, the Planet Hopper (1966; both Caracas, Gal. A. N.).