April 9

At the age of twenty-four, Alipio Jaramillo arrived in Bogotá to study painting, but his artistic training was highly improved during a long trip through Latin America. In México, he met Diego Rivera and discovered muralism. His meetings with David Alfaro Siqueiros in Chile and with Candido Portinari in Brazil strengthened his views on social issues. An interest in humanity, violence, and people exploitation drove him to relentlessly portray peasants in sugar cane and coffee plantations. In the nineteen-fifties, an emerging group of critics who favored abstract and neofigurative tendencies— influenced by the arrival of Argentinian art critic and writer Marta Traba in Colombia— judged his production harshly. In 1958, a text reported Jaramillo’s reply: “I declare myself an observant of realism. And I delve into my country to pursue the universal, the essence that unifies and enlightens. I can see what I have accomplished; and I believe people will probably understand what I am trying
to express.” With its colossal figures and its tragic nature, 9 de abril reminisces about the events which took place that day in 1948, when people marched the streets in Bogotá to repudiate the assassination of Partido Liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. Public unrest unleashed lynchings and lootings, which in turn caused brutal repression by military forces.