Simon Hernandez Biography
Simon Hernandez (1939 – 1996) was born in Maracay (Venezuela), lived and trained in Valencia, after his studies he moved to Rome and attended the Academy of Fine Arts in the studios of Amerigo Bartoli and Mino Maccari. After short periods in Paris, Brussels, Lisbon and Munich, he moved to Milan. In 1952 he enrolled at the Arturo Michelena Institute of Fine Arts, located in the current location of the Paéz museum, under the direction of the painters Braulio Salazar and Eulalio Toledo Tovar. Before going to Rome he exhibited, with a solo exhibition in 1958, at the Lyon's Club in Valencia. When the young man is now in Italy, the fall of the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jimenez does not allow him to receive the money assigned to him. So Simón Hernández finds himself in a difficult situation, and he is proud not to ask his family for any help; in fact, to support himself he works as a RAI speaker on a program for Latin America. In this period he attended courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome with Professor Bartoli and a singing course at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia. After completing the training courses, he participated in the awarding of a scholarship, which, once won, allowed him to travel to Europe; he chooses Rome. In 1966 he went to Paris where he lived for a period in the Latin Quarter; in this city he came into contact with numerous internationally renowned artists, including the Latin Americans Jesús-Rafael Soto, Wifredo Lam and Roberto Matta. He subsequently visited Belgium, Germany and London, however he always favored Italy, where he exhibited throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
