Leo Matiz

Who was Leo Matiz?

Leo Matiz was a Colombian photographer, caricaturist, newspaper publisher, painter and gallery owner. He was born in 1917 in Aracataca, Magdalena, Colombia. His hometown is also the birthplace of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He travelled widely and sold caricatures and illustrations to earn a living. In 1951, Matiz's gallery hosted the first exhibition of Colombian artist Fernando Botero with a showing of his paintings at the Bogota gallery.

Matiz was known for his sense of style including a thick slightly long hair, colored jackets, and gangster style mustache. He had a robust laugh and carried his caricatures and drawings in a folder. He was at the center of the bohemian intellectualism of Bogota, Caracas, Mexico City and other Latin American capital centers. He photographed Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Esther Williams, Janice Logan, David Alfaro Siqueiros, the first castings of María Félix, Luis Buñuel, Marc Chagall, Louis Armstrong, Álvaro Mutis, Pablo Neruda, Walt Disney, Enrique Santos Montejo “Calibán”, Lucho Bermúdez, Agustin Lara, Gabriel Figueroa, Esther Fernandez, Jose Clemente Orozco, Mario Moreno Cantinflas, and Dolores del Rio.