Ovalle is a city in the Coquimbo Region of Chile, founded in 1831 as a settlement. It has a population of more than 113,000 people. The name Ovalle was chosen to honor to Chile's vice-president, José Tomás Ovalle. Ovalle is the capital of the Limarí Province.
Mercedes Valdivieso was a Chilean writer, known since her earliest writings for the subversive nature of her texts. She was born in Santiago, Chile. She first wrote La Brecha (Breakthrough) in 1961, which is considered to be a landmark feminist Latin-American novel. This novel caused dismay from the reactionary segment of society and loud applause from the critics and is considered a revolutionary departure from the traditional treatment of the feminine role in marriage. Breakthrough is a novel that ends with the heroine's awareness that she didn't really need to depend upon a man in order to lead a fulfilling life. The book enjoyed an unexpected publishing success and went through five consecutive editions. Mercedes Valdivieso had the extreme audacity to become an innovator; she bridged the gap between romantic and domestic fiction in a society where women have been viewed as a sexless gender, icons of virtue, and depending on men to meet the necessities of life. Valdivieso also was founder and director of Adan, a men's magazine, and Breakthrough, a feminist publication, she published articles in newspapers and magazines and she gave many lectures and speeches. She taught literature at the University of Peking, at the University of Houston, at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, at University of St. Thomas in Houston and she was a Professor Emeritus at Rice University.
Angelina Beloff was a Russian-born artist who did most of her work in Mexico. However, she is better known as Diego Rivera’s first wife, and her work has been overshadowed by his and that of his later wives. She studied art in Saint Petersburg and then went to begin her art career in Paris in 1909. This same year she met Rivera and married him. In 1921, Rivera returned to Mexico, leaving Beloff behind and divorcing her. She never remarried. In 1932, through her contacts with various Mexican artists, she was sponsored to live and work in the country. She worked as an art teacher, a marionette show creator and had a number of exhibits of her work in the 1950s. Most of her work was done in Mexico, using Mexican imagery, but her artistic style remained European. In 1978, writer Elena Poniatowska wrote a novel based on her life.
Rebeca Matte Bello was a Chilean sculptor. Her sculptures are in the collection of the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts, including her sculpture Icarus and Daedalus, which resides outside the museum.
Samy Mauricio Benmayor Benmayor is a Chilean painter who formed part of the Generation of '80 movement.
Carlos Eduardo Maturana Piña, better known by his artistic pseudonym Bororo, is Chilean artist born in Santiago, Chile, on November 10, 1953. Along with Samy Benmayor, Omar Gatica, Matías Pinto D'Aguiar and Ismael Frigerio among others, he formed part of Chilean art’s 80s Generation. Bororo was his childhood nickname.
Matilde Pérez Cerda was a Chilean visual artist who specialised in kinetic art. She was a pioneer of modern and kinetic art in Chile. Her best known public pieces include Túnel Cinético in 1970, and el Friso, which was originally constructed at the Centro Comercial Apumanque in 1982, but is now located at the University of Talca.
Marisa González is a Spanish multimedia artist. She is considered a pioneer in Spain for the use of the new technologies in contemporary art. She works in distinct disciplines like photography, installations, video-art or net-art. She has been Vice President of the association Mujeres en las Artes Visuales MAV, from 2010 until 2016.
Elisa Ortiz de Aulestia (1909–1991) was an Ecuadorian teacher and writer. Her ideas reflected the principles of the feminist movement in the 60´s. Women´s development through education is the main topic of many of her pedagogical reflections. As an active socialist, she was a member of the PSE as she believed it to be the national revindication movement, that represented principles to fulfill Ecuadorian needs. She and her husband invested their intellectual effort, as well as their own economic resources, to change the methodology that teachers used in Ecuadorian schools. Her work is considered a milestone in the struggle to reach quality education for women.
Sofía Sara Hübner Bezanilla, also known as Sara Hübner de Fresno and by her literary pseudonym Magda Sudermann, was a Chilean feminist writer, journalist, and editor.
Claudia Aravena Abughosh is a Chilean visual artist, curator, short filmmaker, and professor who has worked mainly in the field of contemporary art.
Eugenia Belín Sarmiento was an Argentinean painter and author. Her works were featured in various international shows, among them the first Exposición Anual de Pintura, Dibujo y Escultura for artists of South America in 1893. Critical response to her works has often focused attention on her portraits of her grandfather, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, who was president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874. Eugenia completed many other works as well, including miniatures as well as full size portraits, paintings of flowers, birds, and still lives, and sculptures.
Julia Wernicke was a painter and engraver from Argentina. She is known as the first animalist painter from Argentina, and was unique at the time in incorporating exotic animals into her paintings. She paved the way for female artists in Argentina through many firsts, especially within the discipline of engraving. Wernicke was one of the first women to have an individual exhibition of works in Buenos Aires, in 1897; and the first person to have an individual exhibition of engraved etchings in Argentina, in 1909.
Elisa Pérez Walker, better known by the pseudonym Elisa Serrana, was a Chilean feminist, teacher, and novelist. She was a member of her country's Generation of '50, which also included Marta Jara, Elena Aldunate, Mercedes Valdivieso, and Matilde Ladrón de Guevara.
Marta Palau Bosch is a Spanish-born artist who resides in Mexico. She has worked in engraving, painting, sculpture, and most prominently in tapestries, defining herself by her profound artistic use and arrangement of native Mexican natural materials. She was one of the first Mexican artists to focus on themes around women's and immigrants' experiences during the 1970s, especially in her Ilerda series of tapestries and later with her Nahual sculptures.
Guadalupe Santa Cruz, also known as Lupe Santa Cruz, was an American writer, philosopher, visual artist and translator. She is considered one of the most energetic and varied protagonists of a generation of writers that emerged after the period of the 1973 Coup d'État in Chile. Author of numerous books, including Plasma, with which she received two important prizes in Chile: the Premio Novela Inédita Consejo Nacional del Libro y la Lectura and the Premio atenea. Also, in 2004, Plasma received the prize of the Book Council as a novel in the unpublished category. In addition, at the international level, she received the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 1998.
Justicia Espada Acuña Mena was a Chilean civil engineer. Justicia was the first woman civil engineer in Chile.
Laura Rodig was a Chilean painter, sculptor, illustrator and educator. She was one of the leaders of the Pro-Emancipation Movement of Chilean Women (MEMCH).
Graciela Aranis, artistically known as Chela Aranís, was a Chilean painter and cartoonist associated with the "Generación del 28" and the Grupo Montparnasse.
Academy of Painting, also known as the School of Fine Arts of Santiago, is a Chilean art school, founded on March 17, 1849 in Santiago, Chile. The school produced many works for the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts, where it once was located. It is now known as the Department of Visual Arts within the Arts Faculty, University of Chile.
