Description

This retablo, showing skeletons partying in a night scene, is by internationally renowned Peruvian artist Claudio Jimenez Quispé. A master of retablos, Claudio puts his own spin on the Mexican tradition of Los Dias de los Muertos and creates scenes of the underworld populated by calaveras (skeletons) as a vehicle for satire, political critique and even sacrilege.

In Peru, retablos are portable boxes which depict religious, historical, or everyday events that are important to the Indigenous people of the highlands, with Ayacucho being the center of retablo production. The three dimensional scenes inside the boxes are usually crafted with a potato-gypsum-clay paste mix and painted with detailed strokes of tempera. Claudio comes from a famous family of retablo makers in Ayacucho, but now works in Lima. His complex and beautiful retablos have been shown around the world, including at Santa Fe's International Folk Art Market.  Other members of his family, such as siblings Nicario, Edilberto, Eleudora and Mabilon, and nephew and niece Luis and Julia Huamani Rodriguez are also skilled retablistas.