Fernando Oramas

Fernando Oramas was a Colombian artist born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1925. He grew up in an artistic family environment and from a very early age received his first painting classes. At the age of 18, he enrolled in the school of Fine Arts of Bogotá, Colombia. After concluding his stage of academic formation, Fernando began to travel through different countries of Central America and some Caribbean islands organizing art exhibitions, painting, and graphic workshops. In Guatemala, he met and became friends with Ernesto “El Che” Guevara and recived award of the Government of Guatemala. In Mexico City, he took classes in mural painting with Diego Rivera at the National University. Sometime later, he taught himself in summer courses at that University and recived award of the Bosque de Chapultepec. With Rivera, he participated in the painting of two of his big murals. Later on, he joined David Alfaro Siqueiros´s muralist team helping the elaboration of 4 murals before his expatriation from that country in 1962. In the ’70s, Fernando founded a movement of plastic artists and set the public art gallery grouping various artists aiming to promote their work to the wide audiences as Siqueiros did in Mexico. At the same time and throughout the...

He studied visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bogotá (Santa Clara) having the most outstanding Colombian artists of the time (Gonzalo Ariza, Domingo Moreno Otero, Pedro Nel Gómez, Luis Vidales among others) as teachers. Worth mentioning that some of them had been trained in European schools while others were participating in the Mexican muralist movement. He studied with Diego Rivera in Mexico, member of the mural team of David Alfaro Siqueiros in the last stage of Mexican muralism.

He made numerous solo and group exhibitions in Colombia and Mexico.
His son Juan Alejandro works with the artistic legacy of Fernando Oramas as manager organizing solo and group exhibition, research projects, cataloging, digitalization and dissemination of his work; Also preparing a second documentary film about the life and work of the artist.