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García Mesa, José

(b Cochabamba, 1846; d La Paz, 1911). Bolivian painter. In 1864 he went to Europe to study painting. He remained there for some years, visiting Rome and working in Paris, where he had a studio. On his return to Bolivia, he worked for a time and then returned to Europe. In 1880 he offered his services as portrait painter to the newspaper El Comercio in La Paz, stating that he had founded an academy of drawing and painting in the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias y Letras. At this time he painted murals with religious themes for Cochabamba Cathedral. In 1882 the Musée du Louvre in Paris bought one of his paintings. In 1889 he took part in the Exposition Universelle in Paris and in the Salon d’Artistes Libres, where he obtained an honourable mention for his painting Lake Titicaca. His style was academic, with rigid figures in grandiose poses, painted in a limited range of cool colours. He frequently made use of photography to treat urban topics. While in Paris he painted large views of the principal cities of Bolivia, based on photographs, for example The City of Sucre (1889; Sucre, City Hall) and Cochabamba Main Square (1889; Cochabamba, City Hall). His later paintings include The Execution of Murillo (1905; La Paz, Mus. Casa Murillo). Several of his landscapes and seascapes, painted in France, are in the Real Museo Charcas, Universidad Mayor, Sucre.

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