Noé León and Colombian primitivism
Noé León
Baranquilla, Colombia
10°59′00″N 74°48′07″W
Noé León was a Colombian painter of the 20th century, an important and enigmatic figure of Colombian primitivism.
The accidental recognition of a Colombian painter
Noé León was born in 1907 in Ocaña, Colombia. During his childhood, he followed his mother along the Colombian Atlantic coast, notably Santa Marta, before settling permanently in Baranquilla in 1930. Here, he worked in a variety of modest occupations, and began painting after his day’s work. He began to produce reproductions of landscapes, as was done at the time to decorate Colombian homes. He tried to sell his paintings door-to-door, but without success. It was finally in the late 50s that Cuban critic and intellectual José Gómez Sicre accidentally discovered his work. Noé Léon tried to sell his paintings at La Cueva, a bar frequented by the country’s most bohemian and eccentric writers and painters. José Gómez Sicre introduces him to the Colombian painter Alejandro Obregón and to the effervescent cultural milieu of the Grupo de Barranquilla (frequented by Gabriel García Márquez, Álvaro Cepeda Samudio and Alfonso Fuenmayor, among others) in La Cueva.
It was also in this context that Noé León discovered the term primitivism and began to consider himself as an artist. From then on he gained a degree of recognition, beginning to exhibit in Colombia and to export his work internationally thanks to Sicre. This new-found visibility automatically made him a figurehead of Colombian primitivism. Despite this, he died in poverty in Barranquilla in 1979, even though his paintings were already circulating on the art market.
Noé León and the primitivism in Colombia
Noé León was renowned for his depiction of landscapes and scenes from Colombia that were part of his daily life. His basic compositions, vivid colors and approximate perspectives are the framework for his primitivist works. But this is also a form of regionalist painting, unlike Henri Rousseau’s exotic approach. He depicts the Caribbean coast, the Magdalena river, the people who live there, the flora and fauna, the mountains and forests, the carnival and the children. A painter who asserted himself without following the rules of academic classicism, his self-taught approach freed him from codes and placed him in a form of modern rupture that characterizes the 20th century.
There are similarities between this artist’s career and that of Medellín painter María de los Ángeles Villa (1909-1991), who began painting in her fifties and was discovered by her husband, also a painter, who tried to have her exhibited. She painted her everyday life mixed with the religious imagery that permeated her life. This late artistic trajectory is also comparable to that of Marco Tulio Villalobos (1910-1990). He was first recognized for his sporting career as a soccer goalkeeper for América de Cali, alongside his work as a laborer, before embarking on an artistic career at the age of 53. Also of note are painters such as Sofía Urrutia Holguín and the unknown Diógenes Bustos.
Noé León’s almost accidental recognition enabled other Colombian artists to emerge and gain legitimacy in the artistic landscape of the time. Artists who didn’t define themselves as such, but whose representation of Colombia helped enrich their country’s history.
Colombian primitivism
