Chilean born Gustavo Novoa became represented exclusively by the Wally Findlay Galleries in the early 1970’s, and his one-man shows in New York, Paris, Palm Beach and Beverly Hills established him as a champion of ecology and wildlife preservation. His animals were primitive and painted in lush and colorful backgrounds.
In 1977, the publication of his book “Jungle Fables”, for which he both wrote the text and executed the paintings, was a collection of rhymes on “Vice and Virtue” that gave a new dimension to his animals, making them more anthropomorphic and philosophical. Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey commissioned him to do the poster and the program for the circus that year. By 1981, Novoa’s paintings had changed again. His show, “The Grand Tour” sent his felines prowling the major cities of the world.
On April 3, 1988 Prince Charles of England set a new record for Novoa’s sales by auctioning one of his paintings at a benefit in Palm Beach.
On April 26, 1991, Novoa was received at the White House by Mrs. George Bush. Miami’s Art Deco District had chosen his painting of the “Carlyle Hotel” to be presented to the First Lady, the painting hangs in the President’s library.
In 1997, Palette Publications of Miami, Florida, publishes “Paradise Found”, a major retrospective art book that details Novoa’s colorful life and career. Another turning point in Novoa’s career was the exhibition “ Art from Art” that opened in March 1998 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago, Chile, with great success.
If Gustavo Novoa´s art was once considered ¨naif¨, it stopped being so a long time ago due to the implicit aesthetic proposition in each painting and the stylistic treatment with which his harmonious compositions, regardless of their themes, are conceived. They carry the distinct stamp of authorship inherent in all of Novoa´s work.
His touch cannot be confused. The simplicity in his paintings appears in the spirit of the characters that inhabit his idealized faunas and not through a naiveté concerning the drawings or the color, which, on the contrary, are in permanent alliance and interact to produce a spatial effect creating a chromatic perspective often used by Novoa. With this, he demonstrates an absolute dominance of his craft and transmits to the spectator an air of eternal freshness which his paintings possess due to his pure technique. Occasionally framed by bright foliage through which blue skies glimmer, his humanized beasts live peacefully.