Armando MORALES
Armando Morales (1927–2011)
Armando Morales was a Nicaraguan painter celebrated for his rich, sensual style that blended realism with surreal and symbolic elements. Born in Granada, Nicaragua, he studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Managua before furthering his training in Mexico and Paris.
His work often depicted still lifes, nudes, and landscapes infused with dreamlike atmospheres, where classical composition met personal memory and myth. Morales drew inspiration from European masters while maintaining a distinctly Latin American identity, incorporating references to his homeland’s culture and history.
Internationally recognized, Morales exhibited widely and received numerous awards, becoming one of Central America’s most acclaimed modern artists. His paintings are valued for their technical mastery, symbolic depth, and poetic vision.
Artist: Armando Morales (Nicaraguan, 1927–2011)
Date: 1993
Medium: Oil on canvas
Signature: Signed and dated lower right, Morales / 93
Dimensions: [Dimensions not provided]
Oil on canvas from 1993, Armando Morales presents three nude female figures set within a monumental architectural setting that opens onto a distant seascape. Painted in a restrained, cool-toned palette dominated by muted blues, greens, and greys, the figures emerge with sculptural solidity, their contours modeled with both softness and precision. One central figure holds a striking red staff, a vivid vertical accent that disrupts the otherwise harmonious tonal composition..
Artistic Context:
Armando Morales is celebrated as one of Latin America’s foremost modern painters, renowned for merging realist figuration with surrealist and symbolic elements. His paintings often combine nudes, still lifes, and landscapes in enigmatic, timeless environments. This work exemplifies Morales’s mature style of the late 1970s, in which the human form is reimagined within architecturally inspired, almost stage-like settings that invite multiple readings—mythological, allegorical, or psychological.
Armando Morales (1927–2011)
Oil on canvas
Composition by Nicaraguan painter Armando Morales depicting three nude figures gathered at the edge of a cascading waterfall, immersed in a timeless ritual of bathing. Executed in his characteristic painterly style, Morales layers earthy and muted green-blue tones, capturing both the sensuality of the human form and the raw vitality of nature.
Morales, renowned for his fusion of figuration and abstraction, frequently revisited themes of memory, myth, and sensuality. In this work, the tactile impasto brushwork conveys both movement and intimacy, as the figures appear simultaneously rooted in their environment and dreamlike in presence. The interplay between shadow and light accentuates the mystery of the scene, suggesting a timeless moment of communion between humanity and nature.
