Page 401 - Arte e Historia

Art and History
at the Banco popular dominicano visual arts collection
acrylic/canvas, 100x76 cm., 1991 v «Merengueros,» acrylic/
canvas, 101x127 cm., 1992.
MARIO GRULLÓN:
SPRING IN AUTUMN
Sponsored by Banco Popular Dominicano, Mario
Grullón held in Altos de Chavón the solo exhibition
«Spring in Autumn,» in November 1984. It was an ap-
propriate title. The painter born in Santiago de los Ca-
balleros in 1918 had found the turning point to become
a fulltime artist, at age 66 when he was going through the
autumn of his life. Gone were those jobs required to sup-
port his family and their needs. With his palette, brushes
and color palettes, he began transcribing his visions as
spring tunes.
Mario Grullón liked to paint since he was a child,
helping his father in decorative tasks. When Yoryi Morel
discovered him working at the Sociedad Cultural Alianza
Cibaeña in 1940, he urged him to attend the Academy of
Painting, which he had established in Sol Street, adjacent
to the old site of the Church of Altagracia. After a period who, despite not having been among the best-known representa-
of guidance, in his twenties, he was awarded a scholar-
ship by the City Council to continue his studies at the
National School of Fine Arts, founded in the capital city
in 1942. He graduated from this center as a painting
teacher, associated with the young artistic generation of
the 40s, and with remarkable modern Dominicans and
Europeans maestros who breathed modern rhetoric, al-
ready contaminated with Yoryi’s production.
Upon graduating, Mario Grullón returned to his
home city, dividing his time between multiple jobs dur-
ing the day and painting at night to keep alive his recog-
nition as an artist. He was a painter of signs, banners and who knew him, while his paintings, reflections of nature and a
decorative murals. Also, he was a penman and teacher,
honoured by numerous awards from the Dominican Col-
lege of Visual Artists (1987), the National Competition
for Children (1988), the Science and Art Foundation
(1989), and among others, the one from Fine Arts and
Culture for this teaching (1992).
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In his presentation of the exhibition «Autum in
Spring,» Don Alejandro E. Grullón writes: «Last year Banco
Popular Dominicano initiated a program to annually sponsor art
exhibitions in Altos de Chavón. In this second year of the program
we are showcasing the first solo exhibition of renowned painter
Mario Grullón. Thus Banco Popular Dominicano continues
to offers its support to the development of the visual arts in the
Dominican Republic, providing an opportunity to present solo
exhibitions of artists who for one reason or another could not do
it, at the same time contributing to the wonderful work on behalf
of art and culture that makes the Foundation Altos de Chavón.
We hope that this joint task (…) will stimulate a new generation
of artists and thus contribute to the cultural development of our
country, with the enthusiastic support of all Dominicans.»
In the Main Gallery Altos de Chavón, maestro
Grullón displayed fifty works on various topics especial-
ly costumbrista, and almost all of Cibao. Recognized as
a national artist, the newspaper «El Caribe» September
1996 dedicates him an editorial: Mario Grullón. «With
the same ease with which he lived, the painter Mario Grullón
died recently in Santiago, his land, where he always remained
devoted to his art in a quiet and fruitful manner. Was an artist
tives of the current visual arts not for lack of merit but of oppor-
tunities, he can be considered as one of the pillars of the paint-
ing of the Cibao region. Region that he successfully brought to
the canvas with skill, realism and love. Modest as it was, did
not hesitate to complete the murals initiated by Vela Zanetti in
what was Monument of Peace and is now dedicated to the He-
roes of the Restoration, in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros.
And perhaps few know that to help his great friend Yoryi Morel
at times he was suffering temporary blindness, Mario Grullón
took the brush of maestro Yoryi, so he would not suffer from eco-
nomic hardship. Good artist and tireless worker, Mario Grullón
will always be remembered with respect and affection by those
people he adored, will become the permanent testimony of visual
arts values of this native of Santiago that made the world of his
birth his freely chosen habitat.»