Ximena Cristi was born in Rancagua, Chile, in 1920.[3] For six years beginning in 1939 she studied at the Arts Faculty of the University of Chile, majoring in painting and graduating with a bachelor's in visual arts.[3] While at the university she studied under the painter Jorge Caballero, who influenced her artistic development.[4]
Later on, thanks to a scholarship from the Italian government, Cristi traveled to Italy to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma from 1948 to 1952.[1]
In 1953, she joined with Matilde Pérez, Aída Poblete, Sergio Montecinos, and Ramón Vergara to form the "Grupo de los cinco" ("Group of Five"). This group, which stemmed from a joint exhibition that the artists staged at the Chilean-French Cultural Institute, reflected an inconformity with the traditional mediums of pictorial representation. They dedicated themselves to experimenting with new ways of artistic creativity.[6] While they did not all work in a cohesive style, the five artists shared similar ideas about the reality of the painting, which they saw as corresponding to a balance of forms rather than to visual reality.[4]
She was also a member of the "Rectángulo" ("Rectangle") group alongside Gustavo Poblete, Ramón Vergara Grez [es], Matilde Pérez, Elsa Bolívar [es], Maruja Pinedo, and Uwe Grumann. The group's members based their work on geometric and abstract forms, and they maintained that "art is an art of ideas."[7]
Cristi also taught art, including as a professor of painting at her alma mater, the University of Chile, from 1960 to 1982.[3]
In 2020, to mark her 100th birthday, the Chilean undersecretary of culture and art launched a project to research and study the work of Ximena Cristi, which culminated in the publication of a book titled Catálogo de obra razonada ("Catalog of Reasoned Work") in 2022.[8][9] Cristi died in July 2022 at the age of 101.[3][10]
Work
According to Cristi, her inspiration always came from nature: "If I have a still life, a chair, an object, or a tree, it's very objective, very real, born from there."[11] While she applied her personal vision to her paintings, she acknowledged that she never painted from her imagination, always using something objective as her guide. Her work is primarily based on interiors, gardens, still lives, and human figures.[12] Some of her signature works can be found at the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts, including Jugadores de rugby, El árbol del jardín, and Sillón de espaldas.[13] Other works are featured at the Casa del Arte, Museum of Visual Arts [es], and various other museums and private collections.[3]
^Marcela Drien; Fernando Guzmán Schiappacasse; Juan Manuel Martínez Silva, eds. (2008). América : territorio de transferencias (in Spanish) (1st ed.). Santiago de Chile: Dirección de Bibliotecas, Archivos y Museos. ISBN978-956-7297-02-3. OCLC277275699.
^ abcde"Ximena Cristi". Artistas Visuales Chilenos (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-12-08.