Ｌａｔｅ Ｃｈｉｌｅａｎ Ｐａｉｎｔｅｒ Ｊｏｓｅ Ｖｅｎｔｕｒｅｌｌｉ ｉｓ Ｐａｉｎｔｉｎｇ Ｅｘｈｉｂｉｔｉｏｎ Ｍｏｕｎｔｅｄ ｉｎ Ｂｅｉｊｉｎｇ

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Chile， an exhibition of the famous Chilean painter Jose Venturelli’s works was mounted by the CPAFFC at the China National Museum of Fine Arts from October 24 to 30， 2005. The exhibition drew diplomatic envoys from the embassies of various countries in China and art-lovers and enabled the Chinese young people to see and feel the moral and artistic charm of this great artist of the 20th century.

Jose Venturelli was born in Santiago， Chile on March 25， 1924. He started to learn painting at the age of 14 when he entered the National School of Fine Arts and later learned mural painting at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile.

Jose Venturelli was an old friend of the Chinese people. He visited China many times upon invitation and had been received by Chairman Mao Zedong， Premier Zhou Enlai and other Chinese leaders. He lived in Beijing in 1953 when he served as deputy secretary general of the Secretariat of the Peace Conference of the Asian and the Pacific Regions and did a great deal of useful work to promote the mutual understanding among the people of all countries， oppose aggressive wars and safeguard world peace. He moved to Switzerland in 1974 and returned to Chile in 1986. He passed away in Beijing on September 17， 1988.

Jose Venturelli was very good at mural painting， acrylic painting and engraving. Since 1952， he had traveled many times from Latin America to Europe and China and learned a lot from various plastic arts including the Chinese ink painting. His paintings show his great interest in the life of ordinary people and the gap between people of different classes. To make his painting a unique manifestation of his political belief， he worked hard to create a style that was close to the people. He painted the aboriginals of Latin America to show and praise the sharp features of their faces and their sturdy bodies. He used the title Helping the Fallen-down Chap to Stand up to express his belief. Once he said， artistic creation is a way to express one’s material life， ideas and struggle.

Major awards and honours Jose Venturelli had received included the gold medal of the Leipzig International Painting Exhibition in 1959， the issuance of his painting Little Girl in the form of stamps in the Democratic Republic of Germany in 1968， the founding of an organization named after him in Switzerland and the Jose Venturelli Foundation in Santiago in 1989.

Jose Venturelli’s painting exhibitions were mounted several times in Beijing between 1950s and 1990s as a bridge of China-Chile friendship. The paintings displayed at this exhibition were provided by Paz， daughter of Jose Venturelli. The exhibition received help from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile and the Chilean Embassy in China.