Francisco Oller

Francisco Oller
Francisco Oller
Birth name	Francisco Manuel Oller Cestero
Born	(1833-06-17)June 17, 1833 Bayamon, Puerto Rico
Died	May 17, 1917(1917-05-17) (aged 83) San Juan, Puerto Rico
Nationality	Puerto Rican
Field	Painting
Training	Royal Academy of San Fernando, Thomas Couture, Gustave Courbet
Movement	Impressionism
Patrons	Museo de Arte de Ponce

Francisco Manuel Oller y Cestero (June 17, 1833 – May 17, 1917) was a Puerto Rican visual artist. Oller is considered to be the only Latin American painter to have played a role in the development of Impressionism.

Early years

Oller was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, the third of four children of Cayetano Juan Oller y Fromesta and María del Carmen Cestero Dávila. When he was eleven he began to study art under the tutelage of Juan Cleto Noa, a painter who had an art academy in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, Oller demonstrated that he had an enormous talent in art and in 1848, General Juan Prim, Governor of Puerto Rico, offered Oller the opportunity to continue his studies in Rome. However, the offer was not accepted as Oller's mother felt that he was too young to travel abroad by himself.

When Oller was eighteen, he moved to Madrid, Spain, where he studied painting at the Royal Academy of San Fernando, under the tutelage of Don Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, director of the Prado Museum. In 1858, he moved to Paris, France where he studied under Thomas Couture. Later he enrolled to study art in the Louvre under the instruction of Gustave Courbet. During his free time, Oller, who had a baritone type of singing voice, worked and participated in local Italian operas. He frequently visited cafés where he met with fellow artists. He also became a friends of fellow Puerto Ricans Ramón Emeterio Betances and Salvador Carbonell, who were expatriates in France because of their political beliefs. In 1859, Oller exhibited some of his artistic works next to those of Bazille, Renoir, Monet, and Sisley. For a short time, Paul Cezanne was one of Oller's students, although their professional relationship deteriorated with time. By 1865, Oller was known as the first Puerto Rican and Hispanic Impressionist artist. In 1868, he founded of "The Free Academy of Art of Puerto Rico".

Later years

In 1884 he founded an art school for young women which was later to be known as the "Universidad Nacional". In 1871, Spain honored Oller by naming him a member of the "Caballeros de la Orden de Carlos III" (which translates to "Knighthood of the Order of Carlos III"), and a year later he became the official painter of the Royal Court of Amadeo I. Oller developed an interest in bringing out the reality of Puerto Rico's landscape, its people, and culture through his works of art. Oller's paintings can be found in museums worldwide, including the Louvre in France.

Francisco Oller died on May 17, 1917 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Namesakes

The town of Cataño in Puerto Rico, named a high school after him and the City of New York renamed P.S.61 in the Bronx to P.S. Francisco Oller. There is also a Francisco Oller Library in the Escuela de Artes Plasticas (School of Plastic Arts) in San Juan. The Francisco Oller Museum where many artists, such as Tomás Batista, exhibit their work is located in the City of Bayamón. In Buffalo, New York there is a Francisco Oller and Diego Rivera Museum of Art where Manuel Rivera-Ortiz and other important artists have exhibited their work.

List of some of Oller's works

• El pleito de la herencia (1854–1856)
• Retrato de Manuel Sicardó (1866–1868)
• El Estudiante (1874)
• Las lavanderas (1887–1888)
• La Escuela del Maestro Rafael Cordero (1890–1892)
• El Velorio (1893)
• Bodegón con piñas
• El Cesante

Some of Francisco Oller's works
The School of the Teacher Rafael Cordero (1890–1892)	"El Velorio" (1893)

See also

• List of famous Puerto Ricans — Painters and sculptors

External links

• El Museo