Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Armando Reveron would become one of the most notable Venezuelan painters of the 19th and 20th century. In fact, Reveron is noted for being perhaps one of the only Venezuelan Impressionists of the time, and is indeed, the best example of Venezuelan Impressionism. He is best noted for his landscapes as well as his self-portraits and nude paintings, usually in oil on canvas and in a strictly European Impressionistic style.

As a young man, he contracted typhoid, which would plague him for the rest of his life, but did not stop his drive to become an artist. He would also be plagued by mental illness later on in life, but as is the case with most artists, this did not affect his art work, and perhaps even enhanced it. Throughout his life, Reveron’s mother was a constant resource of love and support and she is often portrayed in his paintings as well.

At 15, Reveron began his art studies in Caracas at the Academy of Beautiful Arts, and at 22, travels to Europe. There, he embraces the work of Goya, el Greco and Velasquez, and travels to France and Spain while studying and developing his craft. During this time, he is also enrolled in the School of Arts in Barcelona, Spain where he studies along other famous artists of the time like Salvador Dali.

While Reveron was known for his ability to beautifully recreate color and light in his oil paintings, he was a sculptor as well. Reveron would often interject elements of his own culture into his paintings, such as the presence of “munecas” or “dolls” in a number of his compositions. For this omnipresence of his own culture in his compositions, Reveron’s work is still highly appreciated in Venezuela.

It is perhaps Reveron’s love and esteem for the classic masters and his own soft colors and lighting techniques that lead him to reject the modern works of Chagall, Modigliani, Cézanne and Picasso. He is even documented as to have written to his mother that their works gave him no inspiration other than to throw himself into the Seine!

In 1917, Reveron’s beloved sister Josefina passed away, sinking him into a deep depression. Much like his contemporary, Picasso, Reveron began to paint in his own “blue period” at this time, painting landscapes in isolation. This isolation would become a habit for Reveron and lead to his insanity. Shortly after this, he built a home in Venezuela where he would live out the rest of his life, which was called “The Tower” by many, due to the way that he imprisoned himself within it.

Though he was in a constant state of depression, Reveron was not without humor. Although top hats had not been in fashion for men for decades, Reveron was known to wear them quite often in his later years, for a look that was almost comical. He is often painted in his self-portraits wearing one, and looking odd and out of place. You would not expect to see a man in a top hat in most 20th century Impressionistic pieces. Therefore, if you have a self-portrait of a man wearing a top hat from this era, it could possibly be a Reveron.

Throughout the years Reveron slipped deeper and deeper into isolated insanity, he continued to create art until 1953. This same year he was awarded The National Painting Prize, and while this news somewhat comforted him, it did not pull him from the depths of his depression. The last year of his life was spent in a sanitarium, and it is unlikely that he created any artwork in this final year of his life. However, before his unfortunate passing, Reveron left a catalog of more that five hundred paintings and drawings and nearly 60 sculptures.

Today, his work is housed worldwide, and especially in The Reveron Museum, his old home, on the Northern coast of Venezuela. Because of his extreme mental illness, who knows what paintings could be in existence of his, un-catalogued and in an otherwise array, and possibly sold or given away in unusual circumstances. There are few artists that can be truly compared to Reveron in his style and technique, and perhaps it is this fact that makes him so great. His work is neither revolutionary nor bold or classical, but simply his own.

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