Oswaldo Guayasamín (Quito, July 6, 1919 – Baltimore, March 10, 1999) was an outstanding Ecuadorian painter, draftsman, sculptor, graphic artist and muralist His artistic attitude awakens at an early age. Before the age of eight, he made cartoons of teachers and schoolmates. Every week he renews the ads in the store opened by his mother. He also sells some paintings made on pieces of canvas and cardboard, with landscapes and portraits of movie stars, in the Plaza de la Independencia In 1942 he exhibited for the first time at the age of 23 in a private room in Quito and caused a scandal. Critics consider this exhibition as a confrontation with the official exhibition of the School of Fine Arts.

Nelson Rockefeller, impressed by the work, buys several paintings and helps Guayasamín in the future He was elected president of the House of Ecuadorian Culture in 1971. His works have been exhibited in the best galleries in the world: Venezuela, France, Mexico, Cuba, Italy, Spain, United States, Brazil, Colombia, Soviet Union, China, among others.

In 1978 he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, of Spain, and a year later, an honorary member of the Academy of Arts of Italy.

His latest exhibitions were personally inaugurated at the Museum of the Luxembourg Palace, Paris and at the Palais de Glace Museum in Buenos Aires, in 1995. He managed to exhibit in museums in all the capitals of America, and many countries in Europe, as in Saint Petersburg (Hermitage), Moscow, Prague, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona and Warsaw.

He received several official decorations and honorary degrees from universities in America and Europe. In 1992 he received the Eugenio Espejo Prize, the highest cultural award granted by the government of Ecuador.

He passed away on March 10, 1999.

That same year his work was recognized, posthumously, with: recognition as “Painter of Ibero-America”, the José Martí International Prize