Colombian artist Beatriz González (1932–2026) is widely known as la maestra in her home country.

Beyond the literal translation of “teacher,” the term is used as a mark of respect for someone who has achieved a remarkable impact in a particular field. In González’s case, it acknowledges her roles as an artist, historian, curator, and mentor, whose importance transcends national boundaries and continues to resonate on a global scale.

Beatriz González: In Series and Full Color is the first retrospective dedicated to the drawings and prints of González, whose practice spanned more than six decades until her passing earlier this year. The exhibition explores her use of appropriation and repetition as both formal and conceptual strategies to reflect critically on the circulation of images, notions of taste, and her country’s recent history.

The exhibition begins in 1965 with a pivotal moment that reoriented the artist’s approach to mass media imagery. González encountered a photograph in a newspaper of a couple who had died by suicide and was drawn to the image’s printing distortions, caused by the fact that it had itself been reproduced from another newspaper. Fascinated by these effects, González painted her own interpretation of the portrait. With this work, The Suicides of Sisga, González began transgressing the languages and subject matter deemed appropriate within the fine arts context in Colombia. From that moment on, her “deliberately clumsy” compositions both revealed a command of drawing and printmaking techniques and signaled a rebellion against convention.

González went on to create a vast art-historical archive, reinterpreting canonical works of art, images from newspaper crime pages, commercial prints, and figures from popular culture. By the mid-1980s, the tone of her work shifted toward questioning presidents and military leaders, while also registering the often anonymous victims of political violence and climate disasters, as well as some of Colombia’s most tragic events. Her work challenges the fleeting cycle of images, opening a space for memory and collective grief.

In Series and Full Color brings together more than 80 works from across González’s career, including drawings, prints, sketches, sketchbooks, objects, and a selection of archival materials. The survey also marks the first time some of these works will be presented to the public.

The exhibition’s title is inspired by the Spanish expression “¡ahora en serie y a todo color!” (“now in series and full color!”)—originally used to promote the transition of a comic strip into an animated series with the advent of color television. The idiom evokes both the vibrancy of González’s palette and the continued urgency of her themes.

Beatriz González: In Series and Full Color is curated by is curated by Mark Pascale, Janet and Craig Duchossois Curator, Prints and Drawings, and Felipe Villada Ruiz, senior research associate, Prints and Drawings.

Image: Illustrated News (La actualidad ilustrada), 1973

Beatriz González

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