Current Merino

Merino was not remembered in the same way as Ricardo Rendón, but his funeral showed that his prestige was comparable to that of this colleague who had committed suicide in 1931 at a very young age.

Merino's premature death, at the age of fifty, in 1973, brought together in the San Diego Church in downtown Bogotá not only his closest friends, but also journalists, publicists, writers, painters, as well as politicians, students, art teachers, and ordinary people who admired the precise strokes with which he depicted well-known and many anonymous figures in newsworthy situations.

These caricatures were almost always accompanied by cartoons that, with simple words laden with sarcasm and truth, expressed the feelings of middle-class men and women, peasants, and the poor in this always unequal country.

He also portrayed national and international political and social activity with irony, images that provoked laughter and reflection so as not to easily forget people and events.

“It's hard to ignore the oasis that a caricature represents; even less so when it stands out for its liveliness, realism, and naturalness. Hernán Merino's works provide me with a refuge and a respite from the cellulosic world. An outstanding cartoonist of the 1950s and 1960s,” journalist Roberto Acero tells us from Paris. He has been a constant driving force behind Merino's daughter, Gloria, taking on the responsibility of rescuing his immense body of work, which remains unpublished and scattered in various spaces, as well as writing a biography that will surely intertwine with the also forgotten history of Bogotá in those distant years.

The first time Merino held a sheet of paper and pencils in his hands, his parents and siblings would recall countless times, it was not to scratch, but to draw what he saw with precision and very good manners, images that only those at his side could confirm were made by a four-year-old child.

It was this drawing, executed with ease at such a young age, which at the same time brought him joy, that made it his favorite pastime. No game or sport could beat him. Furthermore, this solitary activity suited his reserved and discreet personality, which was uninhibited in his drawings.

Thus Merino grew, strengthening his destiny as a cartoonist and illustrator to the point that at the age of 16, when he learned of the success of the Argentine poet Berta Singerman's recitals in Manizales, he made several drawings of her in which her silhouette and her hands in the air appear, just as her spectators had described her.

Without a doubt that they were very good drawings, she left them at her hotel, and the artist used them for several years as illustrations for her recital programs. The Manizales newspaper La Patria took the opportunity to write a feature in which it recognized him as a talented young man deserving of the national government's support. A call that went unheeded, as is often the case.

That wouldn't be the only opportunity during those years in which his talent was exalted. At the Instituto Universitario de Manizales, where he attended high school, he illustrated issue after issue of the newspaper, with discipline and increasingly refined strokes, which earned him distinction and acclaim. His passion for bullfighting led him, at the age of 20, to travel to Bogotá, where the Spanish bullfighter Manolete was fighting in the Plaza Santamaría. This was an excuse to return to his birthplace and never return to Manizales or Medellín, the cities where he grew up.

He always retained his Paisa accent, although because he was not very talkative, some people he interacted with didn't grasp this particular trait. Others, however, considered him their "best Paisa friend," such as León de Greiff and Hernando Turriago "Chapete," who persistently expressed their sorrow at his early death because they were two of his closest friends at the famous and unique gatherings at the Café Automático, which were also attended by intellectuals such as Hernando Téllez, the Cauca painter Augusto Rivera, the writers Germán Espinosa, and the brothers Luis and Alberto Zalamea Borda, among others.

"I honestly don't remember Merino's cartoons in a newspaper. I first came across his work in books, collections, and compilations that came my way when I was starting out in the media. That's how I discovered him. He undoubtedly became a benchmark for editorial cartooning in the 1960s and early 1970s, influenced by American cartoonists."

It's hard to ignore the oasis that a caricature represents; even less so when it stands out for its liveliness, realism, and naturalness. Hernán Merino's cartoons provide me with a refuge and a cellulosic respite.

"I liked his agile strokes, whether in graphite or brushwork, with features very much in the style of Chapete and Luisé," responds the great cartoonist and accurate opinionator Vladdo.

Merino settled in Bogotá with the experience of having been the illustrator of many poets, novelists, and writers who published in the literary supplement of El Colombiano, Generación, where he shared space with the equally unknown young painter Fernando Botero.

His first cartoon appeared in the evening paper La Razón, directed by Juan Lozano y Lozano, and from there his contributions found a place in newspapers printed in the capital and some in the provinces.

As mentioned, it wasn't just his caricatures that appeared in the pages of the national press, but his drawings also illustrated stories, tales, poems, and even essays.

The short stories "Dialogue of the Mirror," "Eyes of a Blue Dog," "The Supernatural Inheritance of the Marquise," and "A Man Comes in the Rain," among others, by our Nobel Prize winner, published in the 1940s and 1950s in El Espectador, were rescued by the Presidency, the Ministry of Culture, and the National Library and given to those attending the inauguration of the García Márquez Hall at the Casa de Nariño a few weeks ago.

Merino was also a character creator. In 1955, together with his friend Chapete, they brought to life José Dolores, a typical peasant who they intended to symbolize the land worker who suffered and awaited the agrarian reform that Carlos Lleras Restrepo, among others, promised but never saw.

She illustrated Diary of a Maid, created by journalist Emilia Pardo Umaña, which chronicled the life of a domestic worker she named and surnamed Ruperta Cabezas; she also made some drawings alluding to the campaign for women's suffrage.

Merino traveled to the United States for two years and when he returned he was appointed staff illustrator and cartoonist at EL TIEMPO.

Along with Chapete and Enrique Carrizosa, "Pepón," they were the cartoonists for El Lápiz mágico, a program on the newly launched television channel in 1954, hosted by Gloria Valencia de Castaño. The program analyzed the day's news while one of the teachers transformed it into a drawing. The program garnered a following and received applause, shared equally by the cartoonists and presenter.

Being part of that elite roster on one of Colombia's first television talk shows seemed to reflect his discipline and persistence.

His daughter, Gloria Merino Lozano, a graduate in Fine Arts from the National University, with several specializations abroad and a full-time teacher at the same institution for three decades, plans to collect her father's works scattered among the family and in various media and private archives.

A task that began when, in 1986, she collaborated with her mother, Leonor Lozano de Merino, with teacher Beatriz González for the third catalogue of the History of Caricature in Colombia, which the Santander painter, along with communicator Claudia Mendoza, dedicated to Merino.

This issue includes articles by Beatriz, her brother Javier Merino, Paulo E. Forero, and Germán Espinosa, as well as key biographical details and some of her caricatures, drawings, illustrations, and watercolors.

This catalogue, like the others in this work, is out of print, but can be consulted in the Luis Ángel Arango virtual library and in the History volumes edited by Villegas.

A few weeks ago, Gloria Merino traveled to Medellín, where she presented sixty caricatures to the Museum of Antioquia, which were warmly received by its directors, who consider Hernán Merino a son of this land.

Camilo Castaño Uribe, curator and researcher at the Museo de Antioquia, commented on the event: “The large donation of 60 caricatures made to us by the family of Maestro Merino, led by his daughter, represents the addition of a very important body of work to the Museo de Antioquia collection, which now numbers close to nine thousand pieces. We believe the arrival of this artist, who already belonged to the collection with two works, represents the return of a keen observer of Colombian reality over two decades. Through humor, he was able to capture the changes in society, fashion, the economy, and politics, and to record the suffering of ordinary Colombians struggling to get ahead… The addition of this collection is also an opportunity to delve deeper into this artist's work.”

Thanks to the donation and publication of his illustrations, we recognize an artist who transcended caricature and humor. He created iconic characters, produced quality graphic works, and created striking illustrations and drawings that are endlessly admired for their technique and beauty.

Characteristics appreciated by the sharp and wise eye of maestro Beatriz González, who dedicated a monograph to her, and which will now surely be disseminated with her biography, in exhibitions, and in documentaries.

Myriam Bautista - Special for El Tiempo