Alejandro Obregón (Barcelona, Spain, 1920 — Cartagena, Colombia, 1992) was a leading figure in Colombian modern art and one of the artists who played a decisive role in transforming the country’s painting during the 20th century. His work developed a distinctive visual language between figuration and gestural expression, deeply connected to the landscape, wildlife of the Caribbean, and Colombia’s political history.

The son of a Colombian father, Obregón grew up between Europe, the United States, and Colombia, and studied art in Boston and Barcelona. In the mid-1940s, he settled in Barranquilla, where he became associated with the Barranquilla Group, an influential intellectual and cultural circle that included figures such as Gabriel García Márquez, Álvaro Cepeda Samudio, and Alfonso Fuenmayor.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Alejandro Obregón consolidated the pictorial language that would define his career. His expressive brushwork, vibrant use of color, and transformation of form allowed him to develop a modern approach to painting without abandoning figuration. Condors, barracudas, bulls, iguanas, and landscapes recur throughout his work, making Colombian and Caribbean nature an essential part of his visual universe.

His paintings also addressed episodes of Colombian history and political violence. One of his best-known works, La Violencia (1962), depicts the body of a pregnant woman merging into a desolate landscape. The painting received the National Painting Prize at the XIV Salón de Artistas Colombianos and became an emblematic work of 20th-century Colombian art.

Obregón’s international career included exhibitions in Europe and the United States. In 1955, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York acquired Souvenir of Venice (1954), bringing his work into one of the world’s most important modern art collections.

Alejandro Obregón’s artworks are held in major public and private collections and occupy an essential place in the history of Colombian and Latin American art. His combination of landscape, wildlife, pictorial experimentation, and reflections on political reality contributed to a new way of representing Colombia through the language of modern art.

Duque Arango Gallery maintained a personal and artistic relationship with Alejandro Obregón during the artist’s lifetime and continues to contribute to the promotion and preservation of his artistic legacy.