Cifuentes began studying drawing and painting in the 1940s, before turning to photography. Cifuentes received his first prize for photographic composition in 1949. In the 1960s, Cifuentes joined VAN (Vanguardia Artística Nacional) — a group of progressive Informalist artists, founded by Enrique Tábara, who broke prevailing art tradition and found inspiration from the Constructivist Movement, Surrealist Movement and Pre-Columbian art. VAN strongly opposed Communist political views and searched for new artistic pathways while staying connected to their roots.
As Cifuentes developed his own visual vocabulary, humorous undertones became evident in his art. Cifuentes responded to internal conflicts and other miseries that gripped Ecuador with humor. By seeing things from a different angle, Cifuentes added new layers to the often hard realities.
Quito, formally San Francisco de Quito, is the capital and largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its urban area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha. Quito is located in a valley on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes, at an elevation of 2,850 m (9,350 ft), making it the second-highest capital city in the world.
Alejandro Carrión Aguirre was an Ecuadorian poet, novelist and journalist. He wrote the novel La espina (1959), the short story book La manzana dañada (1983), and numerous poetry books. As a journalist he published many of his articles under the pseudonym "Juan Sin Cielo." In 1956 he founded, along with Pedro Jorge Vera, the political magazine La Calle. He directed the literary magazine Letras del Ecuador. He received the Maria Moors Cabot prize (1961) from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as well as the Ecuadorian National Prize Premio Eugenio Espejo (1981) for his body of work. He was the nephew of Benjamín Carrión and Clodoveo Carrión.
Eduardo Kingman Riofrío was an Ecuadorian artist. He is considered one of Ecuador's greatest artists of the 20th century, among the art circles of other master artists such as Oswaldo Guayasamín and Camilo Egas.
Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco — born Alfredo Pareja y Díez Canseco — was a prominent Ecuadorian novelist, essayist, journalist, historian and diplomat. An innovator of the 20th-century Latin American novel, he was a founding member of the literary Grupo de Guayaquil, which brought a new emphasis to realistic novels.
Luis Enrique Tábara was a master Ecuadorian painter and teacher representing a whole Hispanic pictorial and artistic culture.
Aníbal Villacís was a master painter from Ecuador who used raw earthen materials such as clay and natural pigments to paint on walls and doors throughout his city when he could not afford expensive artist materials. As a teenager, Villacís taught himself drawing and composition by studying and recreating the illustrated ad posters for bullfights in Quito. In 1952, Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra, former President of Ecuador, discovered Villacís and offered him a scholarship to study in Paris.
Estuardo Maldonado is an Ecuadorian sculptor and painter inspired by the Constructivist movement. Maldonado is a member of VAN, the group of Informalist painters founded by Enrique Tábara. Other members of VAN included, Aníbal Villacís, Luis Molinari, Hugo Cifuentes, León Ricaurte and Gilberto Almeida. Maldonado's international presence is largely due to his participation in over a hundred exhibits outside of Ecuador.
Jorge Velarde is a Contemporary Latin American painter from Ecuador. Velarde has been drawing and painting since he was a child. At the age of 15 Velarde knew that he was meant to be a painter.
¡Alfaro Vive, Carajo! (AVC), another name for the Fuerzas Armadas Populares Eloy Alfaro, was a clandestine left-wing group in Ecuador, founded in 1982 and named after popular government leader and general Eloy Alfaro. The group was labeled as a terrorist organization for the Ecuadorian state during the period of the former president León Febres Cordero, existing between 1983 to 1991, years where they carried out various armed actions and criminal acts in Ecuador, de influencia colombiana y nicaragüense. The group was initially formed sometime in the 1970s, but was not active militarily for the first few years of the 80's.
Jorge Carrera Andrade was an Ecuadorian poet, historian, author, and diplomat during the 20th century. He was born in Quito, Ecuador in 1902. He died in 1978. During his life and after his death he has been recognized with Jorge Luis Borges, Vicente Huidobro, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Cesar Vallejo as one of the most important Latin American poets of the twentieth century.
Eduardo X Arroyo is an Ecuadorian painter.
Fernando Jurado Noboa is an Ecuadorian psychiatrist, historian and genealogist.
Juan Manuel Rodríguez López is a Spanish-born, naturalized Ecuadorian author and professor. He holds a licenciate/BA degree in philosophy and a doctorate in literature from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE). He was a professor at Universidad Central del Ecuador and Universidad Católica, as well as a founding professor of Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where he was Dean of the College of Communication and Contemporary Arts.
Luis Humberto Salgado was an Ecuadorian composer. He was regarded as one of the most influential and prolific composers of his country.
Nelson Estupiñán Bass (1912–2002) was born in Súa, a city in the predominantly Afro-Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador. He was first homeschooled by his mother before traveling to the capital city of Quito where he graduated from Escuela Superior Juan Montalvo with a degree in public accounting in 1932. Bass identified with the Communist Party during this time and in 1934 had the opportunity to publish two of his poems in the socialist diary La Tierra.
Miguel Betancourt is an Ecuadorian contemporary artist living in Quito, Ecuador. He was formed as an artist in Ecuador, the United States, and the United Kingdom. His paintings are a fusion of local cultural motives and colors, and Western artistic influence.
Iván Oñate was born in on March 17, 1948, in Ambato, Ecuador. He lives in Quito, Ecuador. He has been called “the most original poet of the new generation” by French critics Jean Franco and Jean-Marie Lemogodeuc They further remark that “one must pay attention to his disquieting visions, to his taste for life and vertigo, to his wild revelations mixing anguish and delirium.” He has published eight books of poetry and fiction, and his widely anthologized work has been translated into at least five languages.
Gilberto Almeida Egas was an Ecuadorian painter born in San Antonio de Ibarra, in Imbabura Province. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Quito from 1953 to 1957. His early work was in many media, especially paintings of buildings and views in old Quito; his later work concentrated on large black-and-white drawings, in a baroque, expressionistic, and dramatic style.
Blanca Eugenia Viteri Segura is an Ecuadorian writer, anthologist, women's rights activist, and teacher. She has been described as "a grand dame of Ecuadorian literature."
Inés Lucia Cifuentes was an English-born American seismologist and educator. From 1994 to 2005, she was director of the Carnegie Academy for Science Education.
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