SANTIAGO DE LOS CABALLEROS, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.- The Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes presents Painter by Trade: Venezuelan Colonial Art—Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (De oficio pintor. Arte colonial venezolano. Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros), a major exhibition of Venezuelan colonial painting from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, on view through September 16, 2007. The exhibition, drawn from the celebrated Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC), comprises thirty-three works.

Painter by Trade covers the scope of Venezuelan pictorial production during the Hispanic period, including work by such major artists as El Pintor del Tocuyo, Fernando Álvarez Carneiro, Francisco José de Lerma y Villegas, José Lorenzo Zurita, Juan Pedro López, Domingo Gutiérrez, Juan José Landaeta, Antonio José Landaeta, José Antonio Peñaloza, Joaquin de Sosa, and other anonymous painters.

Painter by Trade, on view in the Centro León’s temporary exhibition space, is based around seven thematic groups, enabling the visitor to follow the evolution of painting as a trade in colonial Venezuela. These themes are:

The First Masters: Transition between Worlds; Workshops: Production and Production Methods; Beyond Canvas: Painting on Everyday Objects; The Church, Brotherhoods and Monasteries: The Major Patrons of the Arts; Private Devotion: Painting in Daily Life; Exchanges: the American Influence; and The Caracas School: The Beginning of a National Painting Identity.

The exhibition is organized by the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in conjunction with the Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes. The curator is Jorge F. Rivas, the CPPC’s Colonial Art specialist.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in Spanish, with the main texts translated into English. The publication begins with a foreword by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, representing the CPPC, and an introduction by José León Asensio, President of Fundación Eduardo León Jimenes. These are followed by essays on Venezuelan colonial art by Mr. Rivas and one on Dominican colonial painting by renowned Dominican art historian Maria Ugarte. Also included are technical information about each of the thirty-three works, artists’ biographies, and color reproductions of all of the pieces.

The Caracas- and New York-based Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros includes modern and contemporary art from Latin America, Latin American landscapes from the seventeenth century to the present day, and Venezuelan colonial art. Works from the CPPC form the basis of diverse educational and public programming, ranging from programs for teachers and students to international symposia. For additional information, visit www.coleccioncisneros.org.

The Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes is a project of the Eduardo León Jimenes Foundation. Located since 2003 in a building of some 20,000 square meters, the Centro León has been open to the public since October of that year, with a goal of motivating and encouraging the creativity, environment, and identity that shape and characterize the values of the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean. The Centro León has heritage collections of incalculable anthropological, bibliographic, and artistic value, part of which is on view in 2,100 square meters of space.

The Centro León’s mediatheque is one of Latin America’s most modern and complete documentation centers for research into Caribbean culture.