Felipe Seade

Who was Felipe Seade?

Felipe Seade was a painter and teacher of Lebanese descent who spent most of his life in Uruguay.

Seade was born in Santiago de Chile, the elder son of a Lebanese immigrant family. Eleven years later his whole family moved to Montevideo, Uruguay. At the age of 12 Seade began working as an assistant to the Muralist Enrique Albertazzi and the painter Guillermo Rodríguez. Under Rodríguez' influence Seade took some painting courses at the Fine Arts Circle school. He had his first show in 1925. From 1931 well into the 1950s Seade presented work in many national and city halls.

In 1944, Seade began his parallel career as a teacher. He first work as teacher of drawing at the Liceo de Colonia, where he managed to paint the large mural, Alegoría al Trabajo, and later as a professor of the Montevideo Fine Arts School, where he taught for 25 years.

It is impossible to understand Seade's artistic life without a reference to his political life. He wanted to paint for "the people, not for the walls of the bourgeoisie". He aspired to paint murals, the preferred way for his generation to reach the masses, but the only murals he managed to finish were the one in Colonia and the La marcha del Pueblo à la Piedra Alta at the Conference Hall of the Liceo de Florida. However, a significant part or Seade's work is formed by his sketches of murals and preparity sketches for murals.