Santos Segundo Chávez Alíster was born on February 7, 1934, in a small town of Canihual, between Tirúa and Quidico in the Región del Biobío, Chile.
[3] In Concepción, he was exposed to the work of artists such as Tole Peralta and followers of Mexican muralism, including Julio Escámez, Gregorio de la Fuente and Jorge González Camarena.
[3] Exiled from Chile in 1977, he spent four years in Europe, continued printmaking at the Graphic Workshop of Stockholm, Sweden and finally settling down in the German Democratic Republic, where he worked in a private factory and joined the National Association of Artists.
In 1994, after returning to Santiago, Chile, he was commissioned to illustrate Pablo Neruda's collection of poetry, All the Songs - You, translated to Mapudungun by poet Elicura Chihuailaf.
The people who had studied in Paris or London could not accept the idea that a man with the face of an Indian like me could draw, engrave, paint."
In the distance a window opens up […I cannot say 'I know it all,' so I keep working, suffering and seeking to find that indescribable thing that one searches for…" —Santos Chávez[2]