Claudio Bravo valuation

Claudio Bravo (1936–2011) was born in Valparaíso, Chile. His only formal training was in the Santiago studio of the painter Miguel Venegas Cifuentes, from the age of eleven to twenty; he held his first exhibition at seventeen and worked as a portrait painter in Santiago and Concepción. In 1961 he left for Europe and settled in Madrid, where he became a society portraitist, and in 1968 he spent six months in the Philippines painting Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. His first solo exhibition in New York, at Staempfli Gallery in 1970, was given over to paintings of wrapped paper parcels, a subject he had begun in Spain. In 1972 he moved to a large house and studio in Tangier, later adding homes in Marrakech and near Taroudant, and turned more to still life and landscape. His exact realism, in paint, pastel, coloured chalks and pencil, draws on Zurbarán, Velázquez and Sánchez Cotán. He represented Chile at the Venice Biennale in 2007, and his work is in the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago.

Besides paintings he made drawings and pastels, lithographs and engravings, and some bronze sculpture; Marlborough Graphics in New York published lithographs by him. For a print, check the edition number, signature, publisher and paper, and look for fading. Pastels are fragile and should stay in their frames under glass. A gallery invoice and the date of the work should go with a painting or drawing.