RODOLFO ABULARACH Guatemalan, 1933-2020

Born in Guatemala, Rodolfo Abularach (1933–2020) is one of Latin America’s most distinguished yet underrecognized masters. Abularach showed remarkable draftsmanship skills from a very young age and began his formal training at the age of thirteen in Guatemala City. In 1958, he traveled to New York on a scholarship from Guatemala’s Directorate of Fine Arts to study at the Art Students League. He extended his stay through a series of scholarships, including two from the Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Abularach remained based in New York for 40 years until 1998, when he resettled fully in Guatemala. 

Rodolfo Abularach’s work is held in an extraordinary number of major collections and institutions worldwide, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, and El Museo del Barrio in New York; Smithsonian American Art Museum and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C.; Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin; High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia; Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá, Colombia; Museum of Modern Art in Guatemala City; Museum of Contemporary Art in São Paulo, Brazil; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, and Norton Simon Museum in California; Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania; National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) in Copenhagen; and Museum of Art and History in Geneva, Switzerland, among others.

Throughout his over six-decade long career, Abularach created a fascinating and spiritual world filled with images of planetary forms, mandalas, and earthly and psychological portals. His most famous subject was the eye, which he saw as a window into the soul. His interest in the mysteries of the earth led him to depict volcanoes, emblems of the artist’s homeland and ancient history. Abularach mastered and explored a variety of styles, from hyper realistic to abstract, monochrome to multicolored, esoteric to surreal. He was known for his virtuosity in multiple media, including painting, drawing, and printmaking. As he explained, “The world outside didn’t interest me as much as the world inside [that] I have always tried to find within myself.” Beyond his visual art, Abularach immersed himself in Mayan and Greek mythologies, yoga, and meditation. Reflecting on his inspirations, he stated, “I am inspired by both the archaic past and the chaos of the present. I am interested in universal human themes.”