Pedro Prado

He began to pursue his interest in painting at that time, receiving lessons from Pedro Lira, a prominent Chilean artist of the 19th century.

It was around this time that Prado traveled to northern Chile, then southern Argentina, where he married Adriana Jaramillo Bruce on January 1, 1910.

He began writing poetry with “Flores de cardo”, a book published in 1908, which broke the mold of metric rhyme and marked the introduction of free verse in his country.

He was a deeply philosophical novelist and his work infused creative and poetic imagery with the features of the novels popular within the region at the time.

In this genre, he debuted in 1914 with “La reina de Rapa Nui”, an exotic novel where, in the guise of a simple love story, elements of Easter Island folklore are presented.

In 1920, he produced his most important and well-known work: Alsino, a story with a mythical and philosophically relevant plot, written in prose and full of poetic and symbolic language.

It tells the story of a small peasant boy who dreams of emulating Icarus; he leapt from a tree, and as a result of the rough landing, he grew a hump on his back from which wings extended, allowing him to fly just as he desired.

As a painter, having taken lessons with Pedro Lira, Prado devoted himself to the painting of Chilean landscapes and illustrated various publications of the time, including some of his own.

While serving as director of the National Museum of Fine Arts, he directed repairs to the building and criticized the precarious conditions of its construction, which left it unfinished and with evident structural flaws only a decade after its opening.