Page 336 - Arte e Historia

Danilo De los Santos
commanded by him; imposing a one-party state and es-
tablishing a monopoly, and once released from customs
control, nationalizing the banks and currency, as well as
much of the sugar industry. Jingoistic and promoter of
imposed collective servitude, notwithstanding the ad-
verse conspiratorial reaction, that included armed inva-
sions by anti-Trujillo’s groups organized abroad.
During the first decade of Trujillo’s dictatorship, the
artistic endeavor provides encouraging initiatives and
manifestations. In addition to the academy founded in
the capital city in 1931 by artist Celeste Woss y Gil, other
related events befall on different dates. In 1930, Enrique
García Godoy (b. 1886), had returned from Europe es-
tablishing in his native La Vega the Academy of Drawing
and Painting, in conjunction with the teacher and nephew
Darío Suro García Godoy. In 1932, three more individual
academies are founded. For instance, the one established
by Aida Ibarra (b. 1911), trained in Paris and subscribed to
impressionism. She gave many lectures in Santo Domingo
and Santiago about that particular artistic trend. Also, the
draftsman, printmaker and painter Yoryi Morel (b. 1906)
had his workshop in the Cibao city of La Vega. The painter
celebrated an exhibit in the capital under the auspices of
the Ladies Club (1932). Tomás Hernández Franco, known
intellectual and poet who has focused in revealing aspects of teenth century. Culminating the 1930s, autocracy and
this new artist, made the introduction. The third example is
«Abelardo Rodríguez Urdaneta Academy,» founded by his
disciple Rosalidia Ureña, in San Pedro de Macorís. «Tito
Canepa» (b. 1916) was born in this city called «Sultana del
Este.» He goes into exile in New York, where he is projected
as a remarkable painter of the Dominican diasporas.
The prestigious Master Abelard died in 1933, the
year in which his works are in the first room of modern
art, installed by the initiative of Abigail Mejía at the Na-
tional Museum. The collection also includes paintings
of Arturo Grullón and Yoryi Morel, who establishes his
training academy in his native Santiago city.
In the second half of the decade, the Puerto Plata
native Jaime Colson (b. 1901), exhibited his work in the
Dominican Ateneo (Santo Domingo, 1938), after leav-
ing the country for twenty years, living in Spain, France
and Mexico, where he embraces Cubism and neo-hu-
manist Classicism. His work was little understood, ex-
cept among counted intellectuals such as Ramón Mar-
rero Aristy, who wrote and published a long review when
the artist decided to continue his nomadic way of life
in Europe, a continent which at that time was at the
mercy of modern totalitarian governments; under ideals
promoted by fascism, Nazism and Stalinism; and in ad-
dition, was involved in the Second World War that be-
gan in 1939. That year, the painter form La Vega, Darío
Suro (b. 1918), performs the first solo exhibition in the
Dominican capital. On the aforementioned date, Jewish
German teacher George Hausdorf (b. 1894) establishes a
drawing and painting school. He represents a wave of Eu-
ropean artists and intellectuals who are welcomed into
the country as refugees from ideological persecution and
violent armed conflict. Among his students are the very
young Aquiles Azar García, Marianela Jiménez and Gil-
berto Fernández Diez.
The European immigration was a significant support
for the arts, education, industry and social transforma-
tion, expanding the changes towards the end of the nine-
the cult to the head of state and Lord of a modern fascist
or totalitarian fiefdom is installed, in which, the dictator
was kept informed through a system of espionage and un-
veiling of any attempt of conspiracy and political oppo-
sition. Violence bloodied the country overflowing with
the massacre of thousands of Haitians in 1937. White-
philia (or the desire to be white) and Hispanic lineage
including other doctrinal arguments, were imposed as ra-
cial ideology in the Dominican mulatto society; a vulgar
justification for the attempt of Dominicanizing the non
Dominican, the banking, currency, the border and to
deny ethno-cultural blackness. It was a local implemen-
tation of the Hitler Aryan racism against other ethnic
groups considered inferior.
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