“Not what I Have,

 but what I Do is my Kingdom”

 Thomas Carlyle, 1795 - 1881

 Scottish author, Philosopher, Historian, Mathematician

 “Contrary to popular belief — Painting does not consist of taking three-dimensional

 objects and representing them in a two-dimensional way, but rather in the transformation

 of three-dimensional objects into another object which also has three dimensions —

 namely, the Picture itself”

 Claude - Levi Strauss, 1908 - 2009

 Belgian/French, founder of Structuralism, 

 Anthropologist and Ethnographer

 “I never made Enthusiasm,

 that ardent God in the chest,

 lukewarm; nor did I ever offend

 Beauty, which is the truth of forms”

 ( From an Ancient Egyptian Text )

Distinguished and well respected painter Humberto Aquino was born in Lima, Peru on October 20th 1947. Studied Painting, Drawing and Printmaking at the National School of Fine Arts of Lima, Peru from 1965 to 1971, Graduated Summa Cum Laude with the Prize National School of Fine Arts 1971 and studied Costume and Scenography at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts of Lima, Peru from 1966 to 1968.

In 1972, Humberto Aquino was awarded a British Council Fellowship to study at Cardiff College of Art, Wales, UK.He spent two years in England, working and exhibiting his work in solo and collective shows. Conveniently, his sojourn in England enabled him to travel to the Continent periodically and visit the most important museums and study first-hand the works of his beloved masters Leonardo, Durer, Holbein, Ingres and the work of the Austrian contemporary magic realist Ernst Fuchs. In 1977 he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Solo and collective shows include, Lima, Santiago, Bogota, Cali, London, New York, San Francisco, Washington DC., Chicago, Michigan, Dublin, Toronto, La Habana, Medellin, Mexico City, Las Vegas, Somerset UK, Pennsylvania, Maracay and Miami.

His work might be classified as hyperrealist or surrealist, but because of his specific interest in obtaining a transcendental meaning out of familiar, every day objects, it also falls well within the realm of magic realism – imagination and fantasy are given free play and in each of his works there is a touch of something new. Aquino's drawing is exquisite; the pictorial elements are selected and depicted with unusual care; there is a delicate tonal unity in his color, which tends toward the neutral. In terms of its pure plastic value, rarely does an artist demonstrates such an extraordinary capacity to handle all the elements of his medium with such success.

Humberto Aquino has been honored with many prizes and awards, among them,

• Prize National School of Fine Arts, Summa Cum Laude 1971
• First Prize Salon of the Municipality of San Isidro, Lima, 1971
• First Prize Gold Medal, Goodyear Art Competition, Lima, 1972
• Acquisition Prize, III Biennial of Coltejer, Medellin, Colombia, 1972
• Honorable Mention, Art in the Park, Municipality of Miraflores, Lima. 1972
• The British Council Fellowship, Great Britain 1972
• Fulbright Fellowship, New York, 1977
• Pratt Studio Award, New York, 1977
• Ford Foundation Grant, Pratt Institute.New York, 1977
• New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, New York, 1985
• Mid Atlantic Art Foundation Fellowship, 1988

Public Collections include,

• The Smithsonian Institution's White House Easter Collection, Washington DC.
• Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
• Museum of Modern Art of Latin America, Washington DC
• Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin
• Collection Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogota, Colombia
• Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Bogota, Colombia
• Contemporary Art Institute, Lima, Peru
• Collection XX Century Coltejer, Medellin, Colombia
• Collection University of San Marcos, Lima, Peru
• Collection Company of Insurance The National, Bogota, Colombia
• The Inveresk Group LTD.Collection, Somerset, UK
• The Rockefeller Collection, New York, USA
• Casa de las Americas, La Habana, Cuba
• Collection Smurfit Carton y Papel, Mexico
• Museo de Arte de Lima ( MALI ), Lima, Peru
• Irish Museum of Modern Art ( IMMA ), Dublin, Ireland
• Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Maracay Luis Abreu ( MACMA ), Maracay, Venezuela