Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma (1856-1908), born in Valparaíso, studied at the Santiago Painting Academy under German Ernest Kirchbach and Italian Juan Mochi as well as with Chilean artistic dissident Antonio Smith, who had his own studio. Smith had rejected the academy's classical training in favour of greater attention to natural surroundings. Valenzuela Puelma was among those painters who, in the 1870s and 1880s, increasingly challenged the dominance of academic painting in Chile, turning instead to landscape to express a national style. In 1881, Valenzuela won a government grant to study in Paris, where he spent his time in the museums copying the great masters. There he was a student of Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurens. He was awarded numerous prizes at the Paris salons, most notably for 'La Sirena', before returning to Chile in 1885 to study under Pedro Lira. He left 'La Perla del Mercader' in Paris, which was exhibited as 'El Mercader de Esclavas' at the Salon that same year. Again in Chile, he became a member of the Sociedad Anómina Unión Artística which Pedro Lira had founded to promote temporary and permanent exhibitions of Chilean art. Returning to Paris two years later on another government grant, he concentrated on painting the nude female form; his work won him prizes not only in Paris but also in Madrid. His last trip to Paris was in 1907, this time without the support of a government grant, and financial concerns took their toll. He died in an insane asylum outside of Paris in 1909 and only one mourner, a Chilean architect, attended his funeral. Thirty years later, his remains were repatriated after El Mercurio and the Compañía Sudamericana de Vapores started a publicity campaign and today his artistic reputation is again very high. Valenzuela Puelma was one of the artists now known as the 'Cuatro Maestros' including Pedro Lira, Juan Francisco González and Alberto Valenzuela Llanos. These men exerted a great influence on Chilean art at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century.

Bibliography

• Alvarez Uriquieta, Luis. 1928. La Pintura en Chile. Santiago de Chile: Imprenta la Ilustración. Conservación, restauración y estudios artísticos, Historia del Arte.
• Galaz, Gaspar and Milan Ivelic. 1981. La Pintura en Chile desde la Colonia hasta 1981. Valparaíso: Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Ediciones Universitarias. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.
• Valenzuela González, Alvaro. 1968. 'Historia de la Sociedad Científica de Valparaíso', Anales del Museo de Historia Natural de Valparaiso (1): 27-47.

• Abdul-Malak, Walter. 'Libre Opinion' http://www.libreopinion.com/accionchilena/Critica/Critica.htm
• CREA. 'Historia del Arte' http://www.centrocrea.org/crea_historia_panorama042001.html
• Museo de Bellas Artes. 'Tradición y Renovación: Sala 3' http://www.bibliotecanacional.cl/dibam/museo_bellas_artes/tradicionyrenov.html

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