Untitled

Theo Constanté is one of the leading figures of Ecuador’s Abstract Informalist movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He attended the School of Fine Arts in Guayaquil, his hometown, and later studied at the Academia San Fernando in Spain, as was common of many young Ecuadorian artists at that time. While Constanté’s early work demonstrated his interest in the human figure, he quickly became deeply influenced by the abstract, gestural work of the Spanish Informalists. The Spanish Informalist movement ran parallel to that of the Abstract Expressionist and Action Painters of the United States. Constanté began to produce large canvases that explored saturated color and light through frenzied, emotionally charged brushstrokes. These works soon won him national and international renown. In 2005, Constanté was honored with Ecuador’s most prestigious award for literature and the arts, the Premio Eugenio Espejo.