culture

A scene from the barrio, by Jorge Dunn

Dunn and the allure of Panamanian street painting
by Peter Szok

Last December, Panama lost one of its national treasures, when Jorge Dunn (1924-2007) succumbed to a stroke in his home in Pueblo Nuevo. For decades, Dunn had labored humbly outside Paitilla’s Arrocha Pharmacy and had sold his canvas works in other well-trafficked areas in the capital and the old Canal Zone. Dunn was the son of a gifted West Indian family that had immigrated to the isthmus at the beginning of the twentieth century. His father was a Jamaican shoe designer, and his brother Eugenio (1917-1999) was also a well-known painter. Several other members of the Dunn clan have since gone on to become accomplished artists. Jorge himself had an engaging personality and was blessed with a variety of conspicuous talents. He often interrupted interviews to sing Perry Como hits and Cuban boleros from the mid-twentieth century, which he had performed, as a younger man, in the bars and clubs along J Street. Dunn had learned to paint through his own efforts, and while he never fully gained the cultural elite’s recognition, he did attract hundreds of more ordinary collectors who avidly purchased his cadenced renditions of Panama’s tinanjas, “dancing bottles,” sailboats, fish, and musical instruments, as well as his eye-catching visions of El Chorillo and the Interior.

Dunn turned out thousands of these paintings, hung in homes and hotels across the isthmus, as well as a plethora of arresting murals in establishments as varied as pawn shops and department stores. There are dozens of his pieces in Paitilla’s hospital. Much of this production was commercial and was designed to attract prospective customers. To grab them, Dunn infused even his most humble compositions with a flash of ingenuity and a deep feeling for black aesthetics, evident in his use of musical-like rhythms, his luminous colors, and his sense of showmanship. Dunn was an artist but also a survivor and was forced to hustle and provoke the people who rushed past his sidewalk gallery. One of his most arresting accomplishments is an enormous cityscape inside the Feria Americana, just blocks away from the Legislative Assembly. To the left, Dunn fashioned a large and fluid portrayal of the now demolished Casa Miller, with its jabbering neighbors, dogs, street vendors, and children. To the right, he offered an equally flowing vision of Balboa Avenue and the Casco Viejo, framed by the bay and undulating clouds, and with the Bridge of the Americas almost floating in the distance. In another place, this amazing representation of Panama City might have graced the walls of a museum courtyard; however, here it serves as a backdrop for racks of shoes and piles of stuffed animals.

Dunn, of course, also leaves behind numerous colleagues who continue this practice of imaginative street painting with its ties to advertising and Afro-Caribbean culture. These artists themselves are often Afro-Panamanians and have forged their careers on the margins of the society. They have directed themselves primarily to producing for tourists or to providing the images that engage viewers in Panama’s restaurants, markets, and cantinas. Their bright murals lure people into the baberías and through the entrances of the red devil buses. The transportation sector is highly competitive and is characterized by its lack of state regulation, its numerous proprietors, and converging routes. To succeed, the vehicles foment an atmosphere of spectacle and announce their arrivals with thundering horns and mufflers. In addition, they utilize paintings of musicians, actors, sports heroes, and other celebrities to stand out and draw attention to themselves. These images are mixed with dazzling patterns, cartoons, assertive phrases, and thumping reggae to beat out rivals and to draw in passengers. Víctor Bruce (1930-) works in the Plaza 5 de Mayo Craft Market, and he provides another example of this tendency for commercialism and black aesthetics to meet on the street.

Víctor was born and raised in the Canal Zone, and appropriately developed his skills as a painter by first making signs for the US government. His brother Oliver (1928-2004) was also an artist and began his career in a similar manner, employed for several years by the Canal Commission. In the late 1940s, the Bruces moved to Panama City, where they took advantage of its demographic and physical expansion to launch a successful decorative business. Many of their jobs were connected to the booming music scene and to the popularity of rumba in the mid-twentieth century. They found opportunities in bars, cabarets, and toldos, and they plastered them with the vibrant Afro-Caribbean themes, then so in vogue in this period. Eventually, Oliver took on such impressive projects as the adorning of Hotel Ideal and the now demolished La Cascada Restaurant. La Cascada’s waterfall, moat, and animal sculptures created the ambiance of a tropical paradise and amused and charmed its guests for years. Víctor tended to concentrate more on private residences, while honing his skills as an accomplished canvas artist. Later he earned such important commissions as the contract to paint Panama’s National Comptrollers. Oliver, in the meantime, provided the renderings of the commanders of the capital’s Fire Department. Theses portraits depict officers from late nineteenth century forward and are proudly displayed in the Darío Vallarino Barracks. Víctor now focuses exclusively on canvases, but he imposes on them the same swirling designs, the hues, and beats of the old music venues, which were intended to take hold of likely customers and drag them through the saloons’ wooden doors.

Today there are many other painters who employ the same aesthetic strategies and offer their creations on the capital’s avenues. Like the red devils, they use iconographic imagery with zigzag patterns and energetic colors to capture the interest of those who stroll by them. Cirilo Agustín Hearde (1941-) is a former policeman who sells his paintings in the Cathedral Plaza. His best works portray the capital’s skyscrapers, as he sees them from the San Felipe seawall, and which he presents in multihued forms. Via Veneto is another important tourist center and hence is an outpost for more of Dunn’s followers. Two of the area’s most innovative figures are Nino French (1951-) and Juan Manuel Justiani (1942-). Both are the products of formal academic training; nevertheless, their instincts are like those of self-taught artists. Justiani presents stylized images of Panamanian wildlife on coconut palms and other found objects. On the edges of his pictures, he inscribes lyrical or witty phrases, much like the pregones employed on the red devils. French “cannibalizes” cliché aspects of the Interior, but he places his polleras, his montunos, and similar things into a novel anime format and thus reinvigorates their appeal and significance. A final street figure worthy of mention is the airport artist Luis Eugenio Navarro. Navarro trolls the terminal with attention-grabbing drawings of Colon, the Casco Viejo, and other recognizable sites. His sketches of owls are especially forceful and are a favorite purchase for many departing travelers. Jorge Dunn’s death is a tragic event for the admirers of Panama’s urban culture. The challenges of his life encouraged a unique style of painting, blending commercial with African diasporic aesthetics, and helping to inspire dozens of other artists who struggle, against the odds, to project their own creativity.