David Manzur

Influenced by Spanish Baroque art, in particular by painters such as Velázquez, Zurbarán, and Sanchez Cotán, and using elements drawn from the 19th-century American realists William Harnett and John F. Peto, Manzur returned to figurative art, painting still lifes, the ecstasy of St. Teresa, the story of St. Sebastian, and especially horses in various situations.

Manzur´s latest exhibition to mark his 90th birthday was called "El Oficio de la Pintura" at the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art and curated by Eugenio Viola. It showcased works of each one of the seven decades of Manzur´s work, it was received with critical and public acclaim.

On returning to Colombia he founded an art workshop that was in existence for more than 20 years and trained many artists. He had his first solo exhibition at the Colombian National Museum when he was 24, featuring figurative works. During the 1960s and 1970s, Constructivism was an important part of his work, and he produced mostly abstract works and experimented with materials such as wood, thread, and wire.

After returning to Colombia in 1947, he settled in Bogotá, where he began to study art, music, and acting. He had a brief theatrical career. He studied art at the School of Fine Arts in Bogotá and at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute in New York, and received two consecutive Guggenheim Fellowship and a fellowship from the Organization of American States.

David Manzur Londoño (born December 14, 1929) is a Colombian painter, two time Guggenheim Fellowship winner and alumni of the Art Students League and Pratt Institute of New York. His subjects include still lifes, mounted knights, and saints. In 2019 Manzur was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Boyacá, Colombia´s highest peacetime decoration. In the year 2020 king Felipe VI bestowed upon him the Order of Isabella the Catholic as a recognition for his work and his ties with Spain.

In recent years Manzur has turned to new subjects. The Ciudades Oxidadas (rusted cities) which he exhibited in the first decade of the 21st century, which showed his special interest in the deterioration of the planet and was the result of extensive travel and research.