El Ayer de Rina Lazo
Photo : © Fernando Montes de Oca
Digital Pinacotheca of pictorial images to the Easel of Rina Lazo in Guatemala.
Primary appreciations are deduced from the surprising encounter with her youthful work, which for decades has remained unpublished, enjoyed only by the artist’s close family.
Rina Lazo was born with an artistic vocation, a skill developed since childhood, inspired by the environment, the people and the chapín landscape; in her youth she polishes her talent, goes to the school of fine arts, and attends the stained-glass workshop at the National Palace.
At that time, the teacher Rina Lazo mastered the techniques of pencil, watercolor and oil, creating work to the easel, in which she highlights the handling of transparencies, lights and brightness in still lifes, sharpness in the ability to interpret nature and inspiration in models of the Mayan and national culture
The Museo de la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (MUSAC) an institution open to the public since 1994, specializing in the preservation, exhibition, education, and dissemination of university cultural heritage, it is located in the Antiguo Edificio Universitario, Centro Histórico.
Among its assets it contains a variety of collections of drawings, engravings, painting, sculpture, commemorative plaques, photography, medals, diplomas, books and antique furniture, also the mural Tierra Fértil de Guatemala by the Guatemalan artist Rina Lazo, located at the entrance to the MUSAC Hall. Donated by the artist in 1981, since then there was the link between her and the Museum, until her death in 2019.
Her departure strengthened communication with her descendants and relatives in Guatemala, with the motivation to keep her work and memory alive. Thus, the initiative to commemorate the first centenary of Rina Lazo's birth was born.
This interrelationship allowed to know an invaluable collection of more than fifty easel works signed by Rina Lazo, in family safekeeping for decades, a transcendent circumstance, culminating in the agreement with the heirs to create an exhibition of Digitized Art, entitled:
El Ayer de Rina Lazo. Digital Pinacotheca of pictorial images to the Easel of Rina Lazo in Guatemala.
The Museum agreed to exhibit it permanently on MUSAC's official website, with free use of the images. And to place a watermark with the name of the legal owner. We thank the Montano Lazo families in Guatemala for sharing their legacy, Ms. Gladys E. Barrios Ambrosy.
The digital photographic record in high resolution, made by the architect Antonio Prado Cobos, to whom we acknowledge the enthusiasm, professional advice and trust in MUSAC, to create the final edition and digitized dissemination of the exhibition.
With this effort we hope to contribute to the history of Guatemalan art, to the university, national and international artistic community and to the Guatemalan people in general to stimulate aesthetic enjoyment and raise the spiritual level, linking them with the memory of Rina Lazo who always promoted with her art the values of the Guatemalan ancestral culture.
[1] Digitized Art, from photographic shots of a physical work, "... replicas, susceptible to be modified, altered, fragmented... to then be reworked as a digital creation, or keep that image intact. Consulted in: ARTE DIGITALIZADO Y ARTE DIGITAL:LAS MANIFESTACIONES ARTÍSTICAS EN LA ERA DIGITAL. Departamento de Historia del Arte. Universidad de Granada. Pg. 1. PDF.