Oswaldo Guayasamín Calero (July 6, 1919 – March 10, 1999) was an Ecuadorian painter and sculptor of Kichwa and Mestizo heritage.

Although tragedy molded Guayasamín's work, it was his friend's death that inspired him to paint powerful symbols of truth in society and injustices around him.

La Galería Caspicara, an art gallery opened by Eduardo Kingman in 1940, was one of the first places that Guayasamín was featured.

Due to its controversial nature, the United States government criticized him because one of the figures in the painting shows a man in a Nazi helmet with the lettering "CIA" on it.

[5] The artist's last exhibits were inaugurated by him personally in the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, and in the Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires in 1995.

His images capture the political oppression, racism, poverty, Latin American lifestyle, and class division found in much of South America.

His death on March 10, 1999, was considered a great loss to Ecuador and occurred in the midst of a political and socioeconomic crisis, with the day marked by strikes by the indigenous people (whom he spent his life supporting) and other sectors of society.

[5] In 2002, three years after his death, a building co-designed by Guayasamín, La Capilla del Hombre ("The Chapel of Man"), was completed and opened to the public.