He created around 500 artworks during his life that included paintings, drawings, and sculptures.
Bravo is perhaps best-known for his hyperrealistic depictions of paper packaging.
Read on to learn about Bravos life and works.
“Claudio Bravo Camus' 83rd Birthday Google Doodle by Shanti Rittgers. (Photo:Google)
His father, Tomas Bravo Santibanez, was a wealthy landowner who had three ranches.
However, the young man was completely disinterested in this path and chose to pursue art instead.
He once said, I always thought I had a great responsibility being the oldest male child.
I wanted to get rid of it and become a painter.
I refused to have anything to do with my family’s business affairs.
As a young boy, Bravo was formally educated in Jesuits schools in Santiago.
Obsessed with drawing, he filled his notebooks with doodles.
His passion paid off.
In 1945, the Prefect of his elementary school discovered them and decided he had talent.
He took Bravo to the studio of Miguel Venegas, and the boy began studying art.
Naturally, Bravos father didnt approve, and often warned him with harsh words, saying, Youll starve.
Youll be a flop, a bum.
Bravo claims that he was never inspired by Latin American painters or his own cultural background.
I am only South American because of my passport.
My art has nothing to do with my heritage.
I am very connected to ancient art, toRenaissance art.
However, he soon decided to dedicate all of his time to his art.
He moved to Concepcion, a city several hundred miles south of Santiago.
He lived there for four years, where he became a prolific portrait painter.
He was invited in 1968 to visit the Philippines to paint President Marcos and his wife, Imelda Marcos.
Bravo spent six months traveling the country while painting portraits there.
Although prolific and talented at capturing likenesses, portrait painting began to lose its cachet for the artist.
I’d paint two or three a week, with a facility that I have long ago lost.
Thesetrompe-loeilpaintings brought him fame and allowed him freedom from portrait painting.
Three of my sisters had come to stay with me from Chile.
One day one of them came home with a number of packages and placed them on the table.
I was fascinated by their forms and I painted them.
Claudio Bravo Camus' 83rd Birthday Google Doodle by Shanti Rittgers.
(Photo:Google)
The package works were immensely successful for Bravo.
In 2004, Sothebys sold his 1967 painting titledWhite Packagefor more than $1 million.
Google even paid homage to Bravo on his 83rd birthday witha Doodleinspired by these paintings.
But that year, he decided to pack up and start a new life in Morocco.
He ultimately landed in Tangier.
Places like Fez or Marrakesh are too hot in summer and too cold in winter, said the artist.
Tangier has an absolute Mediterranean light.
Ive always tried to capture Mediterranean light in my work.
During this time, Bravos paintings evoked the vibrancy and mystery of Tangier and its people.
Islamic women, however, refused to pose for him, so he often only painted male subjects.
He lived in the country up until his death on June 4, 2011.
