MASTER OF COLOR: Artist, Journalist, Poet, Author, Playwright  

Founding Member of “Grupo 8”

 

(1900 – 1988)

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay on January 3, 1900, Mr. Verdié first studied at the famed “Círculo de Bellas Artes.” Very active as an artist, he taught and became Secretary of the newly established School of Fine Arts (“Escuela de Bellas Artes”) since its founding until 1959. His prolific novels and articles were frequently published and his plays staged in theatres in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. 

 

Verdié traveled to Europe many times to and served as an national diplomat. In Paris, he enrolled at the “Atelier of Abstract Art” to study under E. PILLET and J. DEWASNE. In 1967 he was appointed Cultural attaché at the Embassy of Uruguay in Brussels, Belgium. Two years later, in 1969, the “Instituto de Cultura Hispánica de Madrid” granted Mr. Verdié a scholarship in Spain; at the time he is also appointed as Cultural attaché of the Embassy of Uruguay in Madrid.

 

Upon his return from Europe, his close friend and owner of Galería Contemporánea, Julio Mariño, invites VERDIÉ to set up his own atelier and paint on premises exclusively  for the newly opened art gallery.  

 

EXHIBITIONS   

JULIO VERDIÉ began exhibiting his diverse artwork extensively in 1945, often at the invitation of important and well-established art galleries, institutions, corporations and museums around the world. They were organized in Montevideo, Uruguay; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Paris, France; also in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and in Slovenia; Brussels, Belgium; Geneva, Switzerland; in Frankfurt and Dusseldorf, Germany; Sao Paolo,  Porto Alegre and in Rio do Janeiro, Brasil; at the Pittsburg Carnegie Institute and the Dallas Museum, in U.S.A.; in Mexico; and in the Popular Republic of China.

 

AWARDS

In his seventy years of presence in the art milieu, VERDIÉ was awarded a number of prestigious awards. In 1957 he obtained a gold medal for his original “Still Life No. 4”. In 1975 he wins the highest honor in the arts awarded in Uruguay, the “Gran Premio Nacional de Pintura” by “El Salón Nacional  de Artes Plásticas y Visuales in Uruguay. His artwork is found in the permanent collections of the Museo Nacional y Municipal de  Bellas Artes, Montevideo, Uruguay; the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Museos do Sao Paolo and Rio do Janeiro, Brasil as well as in many private collections in Europe and the Americas.