Title: The Núñez Brothers
Subtitle: A Study in Global Art History
Original title: Bratři Núñezové
Original subtitle: Studie z globálních dějin umění
Book language: Czech-English edition
Author: Jan Wollner
Translator: Martin Tharp
Designed by: František Polák
Publisher: UMPRUM
ISBN: 978-80-88622-31-4
Selling price: 625 CZK
Binding: V7
Formate: 180 x 250 mm
Number of pages: 180
Project: https://mistatvorivosti.umprum.cz/en/
The Chilean artists Guillermo (1930–2024) and Sergio (1931–2002) Núñez, as brothers, had highly similar conditions in the outset of their lives and careers. However, the last place where they lived and worked together was in fact Prague, where they both studied in the late 1950s and early 1960s at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design. From that point on, their careers across several continents took radically diverging paths. Guillermo Núñez made his way to New York. From there, he returned to Chile, assuming the post of director of the Museum of Contemporary Art to participate in the new cultural policies under Salvador Allende. After the 1973 coup and Allende’s death, he was imprisoned and then had to flee to Europe, where on both sides of the Iron Curtain he testified as an exiled dissident to the crimes of Pinochet’s military regime. Sergio Núñez left Prague for the post-revolutionary republic of Iraq, where he taught at Baghdad’s Tahrir College. In the wake of the Ba’athist coup of 1963, he returned to Prague, where he settled permanently and worked for the International Students’ Union, designing their posters. While Guillermo Núñez is acknowledged as a key figure in Chilean modern art, Sergio Núñez has been forgotten. This book employs the methodology of global art history to compare the careers of both brothers.