Alejandro Obregon; Painter Depicted Colombian Violence

Alejandro Obregon, a Colombian painter known around the world for his huge canvases depicting what one critic called “the beautiful violence” of his country, died of a brain tumor Saturday.

Obregon, 72, died in a hospital in Cartagena, 400 miles northwest of Bogota, the news agency Colprensa reported.

President Cesar Gaviria issued a statement saying, “Obregon is perhaps the artist who knew best how to tell in colors the luminosity of our Caribbean and Andean geography.

“But he was also the one who knew best how to tell in tormented fragments the dark side of our history: violence,” he added.

Born in Barcelona to a Colombian father and a Spanish mother, Obregon was brought up in Colombia, Britain and the United States.

His huge paintings hang in leading museums and private collections worldwide and adorn the Colombian Congress and presidency buildings.

Obregon was walking nearby when an assassin fatally shot charismatic poliltical leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan on April 9, 1948. The murder that ushered in a long period of civil war in which tens of thousands died.

The violence left its imprint on Obregon’s work, which often included symbolic condors and doves. One of his most famous paintings is titled “La Violencia,” or “Violence.” In it a white bird flies over a mountain shaped like a pregnant woman, one of whose breasts is bleeding.

Another of his works, the muscular and colorful “Sunrise in the Andes,” dominates the hallway of the Security Council chambers at the United Nations in New York.

Obregon, considered part of the Spanish school of Informalism but with roots in the Abstract Expressionist movement, had lived quietly in Cartagena with his family since returning from the United States, where he underwent an operation last January.

Gaviria lent his private plane to transport Obregon’s body to Barranquilla, where the artist was buried Sunday.