Oswaldo Guayasamín (July 6, 1919 – March 10, 1999, Quito, Ecuador) was an Ecuadorian master painter and sculptor. He was born in Quito to a native father and a Mestiza mother. His family was poor and his father worked as a carpenter for most of his life. He later worked as a taxi and truck driver. He was the first child of ten children in his family. When he was young, he enjoyed drawing caricatures of his teachers and the children that he played with. He showed an early love for art. He created a Pan-American portrait of human and social inequalities which reached international recognition. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Quito as a painter and sculptor. He also studied architecture there. He held his first exhibition when he was 23, in 1942. While he was attending college, his best friend died during a demonstration in Quito. This incident, would later inspire one of his paintings, "Los Ninos Muertos." This event helped him to form his vision about the people and the society that he lived in. In 1948 he won the first prize at the Ecuadorian Salón Nacional de Acuarelistas y Dibujantes. In 1955, at the age of 36, he won first prize at the Third Hispano-American Biennial of Art in Barcelona, for El ataúd blanco and in 1957 he was named the best South American painter at the Fourth Biennial of São Paulo. During 1942 and 1943, Guayasamin travelled to the United States and Mexico, where he met Orozco. They travelled together to many of the diverse countries in Latin America. They visited countries like Peru, Brazil, Chile Argentina, and Uruguay. Through these travels he found the indigenous lifestyle and poverty that appeared in his paintings. (via Wikipedia)