1970

Vigas settles in Caracas with his family and promotes the creation of the group of artists called Presencia 70, with which the artist presents exhibitions at the Comunidad Educativa Agustín Ravelo, the Ateneo de Caracas, and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas. He exhibits Mitificaciones at the Fundación Eugenio Mendoza in Caracas, and Vigas 70 at the Galería Bon Art, in Valencia, Venezuela.

“This new proposition of Vigas’ is based on structures of stylized forms, in crossed rhythms, patterns of telluric evocation and of flora invented for the plastic experience, that in their best moments create mysterious and pleasant atmospheres, where it is easy to detect the skill and very difficult to discover their value as artistic research…”

Roberto Guevara, “Vigas 1970,” El Nacional, June 9, 1970, Caracas

1971

Vigas holds the position of Director of the Arts Division of the Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes (INCIBA). He organizes and sets new standards for the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, the Salón de las Artes Plásticas in Venezuela, the Salón Artes del Fuego, the Salón de Gráficas y Dibujo, and the Salón de Jóvenes. He participates in several group exhibitions at the Galería Salamandra and the Galería Antañona (where he exhibits tapestries with Ana Teresa Dagnino and Humberto Sánchez Jaimes), and also participates in Presencia 71 at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas and at the Casa de la Cultura in Maracay. He presents solo exhibitions at the Teatro de Bellas Artes de Maracaibo and also presents Oswaldo Vigas, pinturas 1945-1971 at the Centro de Historia Larense in Barquisimeto.

1972

Vigas resigns his position and participates in several group exhibitions in Venezuela and in Europe: Treinta años del Salón Arturo Michelena a través de sus premios, Ateneo de Valencia, Casa de la Cultura of Maracay, and Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas; and Colección de Ewa Garztecka, with Eduardo Arroyo, Consagra, Otto Dix, Guinovart, Jan Libenstein, Alfred Lenice, Silvano Lora, Pablo Serrano, and Védova, among others, at the Wroclaw National Museum, in Poland. Starting from the end of this year, a new rejection of the surveillance of the intellect prevails in Vigas’ work, and once again the instinctive need to paint freely is unleashed. Vigas’ new characters retain the structural meaning his characters had in his previous period.

1973

He presents Oswaldo Vigas, pinturas recientes at the Galería Antañona, and Oswaldo Vigas, mitos y figuraciones at the Galería Portobello, both in Caracas. He participates in Gráficas contemporáneas, at the Galería Portobello, and 4 Maestros de la pintura contemporánea: Guevara Moreno, Sánchez Jaimes, Salazar y Vigas at the Museo de Arte Colonial, in Mérida, Venezuela. The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo El Minuto de Dios of Bogota organizes the retrospective Oswaldo Vigas, 1943-1973. Also in Colombia, he presents Oswaldo Vigas: serigrafías at the Galería San Diego, and he participates in the First Bienal de Arte Latinoamericano in Sogamoso, where he wins the First Honor Mention. He participates in the World Print Competition 73, in San Francisco, California.

1974

He presents Ocho artistas venezolanos at the Galería Aele in Madrid, with Teresa Casanova, Doménico Casasanta, José Antonio Dávila, Francisco Narváez, Pardo, Max Pedemonte, and A. Rodríguez. He participates in the Premios Arturo Michelena, Ateneo de Valencia: 1943-1974 at the Ateneo de Valencia, Valencia; Nueve pintores valencianos, at Banco Hipotecario del Centro; Gráfica y dibujo latinoamericano at the Galería Portobello; and Oswaldo Vigas, óleos y acrílicos and the Galería Bancarios.

1975

New York’s Galería Venezuela presents Prints by Vigas and Manaure. Vigas participates in Veinte pintores latinoamericanos at the Galería Siglo XX, in Quito, Ecuador, with Berni, Roberto Matta, Luis Molinari, Antonio Samudio, Jorge Seguí, Fernando de Szyszlo, and Jorge Tábara, among others; Panorama de la pintura venezolana, 113 obras de los siglos XIX y XX at Casa de Las Américas in Havana, Cuba, with the Caracas City Council; and Proposiciones para la arquitectura (maquettes), with Harry Abend, Pedro Barreto, Luis Chacón, Colette Delozanne, Alejandro Otero, and Jesús Soto at the Living Art gallery in Caracas. Oswaldo Vigas, 3 tapicerías opens at the Embassy of Mexico in Caracas. He participates in numerous group exhibitions in Venezuela and abroad: Latin Excellence: Contemporary Hispanic Art, at the Xerox Corporation Center, New York, along with by Canogar, Coronel, Juan Fernández, Gabino, Góngora, Matta, Mérida, Morales, Emilio Orozco, Pacheco, Rivera, etc.;

1976

Vigas is part of the Organizing Committee of the recently created Galería de Arte Nacional and the new Museo de Bellas Artes. Exposición de arte venezolano, gráfica, dibujo y cerámica, Galería CONAC; Salón Nacional Las Artes Plásticas in Venezuela, Museo de Bellas Artes; Seis pintores venezolanos, Galería Arte Presente; Librería-Galería Cruz del Sur, along with Jacobo Borges, Manuel Espinoza, Alejandro Otero, Alirio Palacios, Mercedes Pardo, and Luisa Richter; and Las artes plásticas en Carabobo, siglos XIX y XX, Ateneo de Valencia.

“Oswaldo Vigas is one of the few artists in our midst who, in terms of both intention and program, has gone from the particular to the universal, to the expression of our identity.”

Roberto Montero Castro, “Oswaldo Vigas: la lucha por descubrir la identidad americana,” National Culture Magazine (CONAC) No. 222-223, October-December 1975 and January-March 1976, Caracas

1977

Vigas presents Oswaldo Vigas, Imagen de una identidad expresiva at the Museo de Arte Italiano de Lima, Peru, and Ancestros at Galería Venezuela, New York. He participates in the collective exhibitions Pintura Venezolana at the Galería Ariete in San Cristóbal, Venezuela; and Quince pintores, Galería Cubagua, Caracas, along with Hugo Baptista, Gabriel Bracho, Carlos Hernández Guerra, Humberto Jaimes Sánchez, Mateo Manaure, Alirio Palacios, Régulo Pérez, and Manuel Pérez Quintana Castillo.

“With their repetitive rhythm and their well-marked accents, these characters seem to be fantastically mounted on stilts-- for an invisible theater of the ancestors. The carnavalesque and the hieratic are summoned in the same scene; some of the insolent figures, like rigid scarecrows, allow themselves to be surrounded, encrusted by scales.”

Dan Haulica, “La inmersión inmemorial,” París 1952-1993 catalog, Paris, September 1993 (on the paintings produced in 1977)

1978

He presents Oswaldo Vigas, signo y magia at the Galería Durban, in Barquisimeto; Oswaldo Vigas, cien dibujos 1965-1978 at the Galería La Trinchera, in Caracas; and Oswaldo Vigas, una mitología americana, at the Galería de Arte El Callejón in Bogota. In Caracas, he participates in several group exhibitions: Cinco maestros de la pintura actual venezolana: Guevara Moreno, Manaure, Régulo Pérez, Quintana Castillo, y Vigas, Galería Centro de Arte Euroamericano; Primer Encuentro Iberoamericano de Críticos de Arte y Artistas Plásticos at Museo de Bellas Artes, AGPA, cartón de Venezuela, obras gráficas, 29 Artistas at Museo de Bellas Artes and Premios del Salón Arturo Michelena at Galería de Arte Nacional. He also attends the Salon of Honorees with the Arturo Michelena Award, Ateneo de Valencia. In Paris, he participates in the XXXIV Salon de Mai, a tribute to the poet Juan Sánchez Peláez, at La Galerie; and in Essor de la peinture vénézuelienne entre 1950 et 1966, in the Arturo Michelena and Cristóbal Rojas halls, Venezuela Embassy in France. He participates in the group exhibition held on the anniversary of the Galería Forum in Lima, Peru.

“Suddenly, we find ourselves in these ‘magical’ images of Venezuela’s Oswaldo Vigas en route to metaphor through contradictory emotions like imbalance, order, beauty, fear, turmoil, and harmony, with the face of America unknown and enigmatic.”

Mario River, text for the Oswaldo Vigas, una mitología americana catalog

1979

Vigas presents the retrospective Ritos elementales, dioses oscuros at the Galería de Arte Nacional in Caracas, and Oswaldo Vigas at the Instituto de Arte Panameño in Panama. In Caracas, he participates in the group exhibitions: El mundo de lo sobrenatural at the Boggio Museum, along with Victor Millán, Elsa Morales, Alirio Oramas, Armando Reverón, and Bárbaro Rivas; El arte figurativo en América Latina, Museo de Bellas Artes. He presents Oswaldo Vigas, poesía ancestral at the Galería Gaudí in Maracaibo, and Oswaldo Vigas, ritos elementales, dioses oscuros and Arte constructivo venezolano 1945-1965 at the Galería de Arte Nacional in Caracas. He participates in the group exhibition AGPA, cartón de Venezuela, gráficas at the Consulate of Venezuela in New York.

“The selective eye that approaches his work will definitely discern a highly affirmative equilibrium in which a spirit ardently surrenders to the pristine forces of the earth itself, a work that exudes authenticity on all four sides. The culmination of a deserved victory for a man who transmutes matter into something giving dimension to the imperishable, the transcendent.”

Rafael Squirru, “Oswaldo Vigas y la pintura Venezolana,” Instituto de Arte Panameño, 1979.