Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1930 La Paz, Bolivia

Died: 2007 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1960

Other name/s: Fernando Montes Peñaranda

Biography

Painter Fernando Montes was born in La Paz, Bolivia in 1930. When he was 12 he moved with his family to Argentina, where he was admitted to the studio of the Catalan artist and Spanish civil war exile, Vicente Puig. Montes returned to La Paz to study Philosophy at the University of San Andres, and from 1951 he worked for two years with Jorge Ruiz and Augusto Roca, pioneers of the Bolivian film industry, journeying to remote parts of the Bolivian High Plateau and forests. He subsequently produced a series of paintings of the Indian tribes he had encountered. Afterwards, he moved to Madrid for one year to attend the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he was awarded a scholarship by the Spanish Government.

In June 1960 Montes was invited to London to view the collection of Latin American Art that the British Museum stored in its basement at that time. The same year he enrolled at St Martin's School of Art (where he became a close friend of fellow artist and Holocaust survivor, Alicia Melamed-Adams), continuing his studies the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1960–61). Montes considered the 1960s in London to be its 'belle époque', and was thrilled by its lively and creative atmosphere, stimulated by the presence of so many exhibiting artists from all over the world. In 1965 he held his first solo exhibition in London at the St Martin's Gallery, showing portraits, London cityscapes and a series of 'pub paintings' – introspective and thoughtful figures sitting around a table. The exhibition received positive reviews in the press and the Surrealist painter Conroy Maddox commented in Arts Review: 'A kind of gentle Impressionism infuses the works of Montes. His groups of still-lives and figure studies are rendered in a cosy intimacy and thoughtful deliberation. He is not a painter who tries for a meticulous representation but more a delicate cultivation of the sensibilities, the subtleties of brushwork and nuances of light and colour and texture' (Maddox 1965).

In 1965 Montes visited Bolivia and, once again, encountered the magnificent landscape of his childhood, which prompted him to return to Bolivian subject matter. He produced landscapes of the High Andes and faceless, hieratic Andean women, which investigated the essence of the relationship between humanity and the land. In 1968 he exhibited paintings at the Upper Grosvenor Gallery which were inspired by the vastness of the Andes and its nomadic shepherds. Montes achieved major recognition in 1973 when he was invited to contribute to an exhibition of Bolivian contemporary painters at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Inspired by the austere architecture of the great Peruvian Inca archaeological site, Machu Picchu, which he had visited in 1989, in these paintings he reduced the monumental forms to their bare, abstract essentials, representing light and shade on stony forms set against empty landscapes, glittering water or white skies. In 1989 he participated in an exhibition organised by the Latin American Arts Association in Westwood House in Mayfair. Arts Review noted that 'The sense of peace that pervades Montes' painting is astonishing […] His renderings are somewhat between Raphael and Moore: the mysticism of the mother figure coupled with the earthiness of humanity' (de Borchgrave 1989). The themes of Andean women and ancient Andean architecture would occupy him for the rest of his life.

In 2001 he held his fourth solo exhibition in London, at the Bruton Gallery. In an interview for the magazine Américas Montes declared: 'Someone has said that in political life, London is the balcony of the world. I have found that it gives you the same closeness and the same perspective in the world of art […] And, of course, it has also given me a better perspective of the Bolivian highlands. From abroad you can see the forest as well as the trees. You can better see your own culture and discover what you are' (artist’s website). His last important exhibition was Spirit of the Andes, a retrospective held at London's Mall Galleries in 2006. Fernando Montes died in London, England on 17 January 2007. Two years later his paintings of the Andes were celebrated in a retrospective at Canning House. Alastair Smart noted in the The Sunday Telegraph the sense of timelessness and blending together of figures with the landscape, adding that 'it's not easy to tell where a natural hillside ends and an Inca altar begins. The architecture seems to grow organically out of the landscape'. In the UK public domain Montes’ work can be found in the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America, University of Essex.

Related books

Alastair Smart, 'Plateaus of Peace. Fernando Montes at Canning House', Sunday Telegraph, 13 December 2009, p. 22
'Fernando Montes. Obituary', The Times, 22 March 2007, p. 63
Fernando Montes and Mall Galleries, Spirit of the Andes: a Retrospective Exhibition (London: Studio Gualtiero, 2006)
Richard Compton Miller, ‘Artist of the Month. The Exhibition at the Bruton Street Gallery', The London Magazine, 13 October 2001
Fernando Montes: Obra 1957–1999 (Aguilar: Santillana de Ediciones, 1999)
Helen de Borchgrave, 'Fernando Montes, Latin American Arts Association, Westwood House, Stanhope Gate, Mayfair', Arts Review, 24 February 1989
Hamilton Wood, 'Joint Exhibition at Ellingham Mill, Suffolk', Eastern Evening News, 28 September 1978
'Fernando Montes at Madden Galleries, Duke Street', The Sunday Telegraph, 22 June 1975
A. Mack, 'Staring into Space: Paintings by Fernando Montes: Madden Galleries, London', Yorkshire Post, 19 June 1975
Conroy Maddox, 'Fernando Montes. St Martin's Gallery', Arts Review, 23 Jan – 6 Feb 1965

Related organisations

Central School of Arts and Crafts, London (student)
San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Madrid (student)
St. Martin’s School of Art (student)
University of San Andres, La Paz (student)

Selected exhibitions

Paintings by Fernando Montes, Canning House, London (2009)
Spirit of the Andes, retrospective exhibition, Mall Galleries, London (2006)
Joint exhibition, Minories Gallery, Colchester (2003)
Fernando Montes, Bruton Street Gallery, London (2001)
Royal Academy of Arts, Summer Exhibition (2001)
Latin American Art Show, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (1994)
Latin American Art Show, Bolivar Hall, London (1993)
Art for a Fairer World, Smith Galleries, London (1993)
Art for a Fairer World, Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow (1992)
Latins in London, Bolivar Hall, London (1989)
Latin American Art Association, London (1986)
Group exhibition, Ellingham Mill, Bungay, Suffolk, England (1978)
Madden Galleries, London (1975)
Pastel Society, London (1971)
Upper Grosvenor Gallery, London (1968)
St Martin's Gallery, London (1965)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Fernando Montes]