(b Ica, 1914; d Lima, 21 July 1961). Peruvian painter, potter and sculptor. He had little formal education, but after training as a boxer in Lima he settled in Buenos Aires, where his interest in pottery led him to set up a workshop for the conservation of Pre-Columbian pottery and for the manufacture of pottery in the style of this period. He learnt to sculpt and studied painting under Emilio Pettoruti (1892–1971). In 1938 he went to Paris, where he studied the work of the French masters and relaxed his style, rejecting academic canons. Returning to Peru in 1942, he adopted a rather Expressionist style of painting, with clear lines, suggestive of sculpted forms. He avoided the other avant-garde European styles of the period, opting for a while for elements of the Indigenist style (see PERU, §IV, 2). Under Pettoruti he developed a great interest in sculpture. His activity in this field was limited to a few works, culminating in 1942 when he won first prize in a competition for his sculpture Amazonía (1942). He went on to develop a rather violent approach, including scoring paint to heighten textural qualities and using bold strokes of red, blue, green and black, and by the early 1950s his painting was truly Expressionist, as in Don Juan (1952; Lima, Mus. Banco Cent. Reserva). After the mid-1950s, his painting tended towards mystical themes, such as St Rosa de Lima (c. 1960–61), and became increasingly aggressive and violent, somewhat reminiscent of Fauvism.

• Gutiérrez Alarcón, Sérvulo
  • Peru, §IV, 2(ii): Painting, graphic arts and sculpture, c 1922–c 1950
  • Peru, §IV, 2(iii): Painting, graphic arts and sculpture, after c 1950
  • Peru, §VII: Ceramics