[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/escamez-beginning-end-mural-955×1024-1.webp?w=955″]<\/p>\n
\n\tTwo 1970s murals by Chilean artist Julio Esc\u00e1mez, long thought to have been destroyed by Augusto Pinochet\u2019s military regime, are currently in the process of being uncovered and restored. The Heritage Unit of the Municipality of Chill\u00e1n (UPA), which has been carrying out the work, announced this week that they expect to have the first of the murals ready for viewing by December 2027. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tIn 1969, Eduardo Contreras Mella, the mayor of Chill\u00e1n and a member of Chile\u2019s Communist party, commissioned Esc\u00e1mez to create murals for Chill\u00e1n\u2019s city hall. Esc\u00e1mez spent more than two years working on the paintings, which were unveiled in June of 1972.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe finished murals, titled The Beginning<\/em> and The End<\/em>, were situated in the building\u2019s Hall of Honor, taking advantage of its double-height ceiling. Executed in the style of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, whom Esc\u00e1mez admired, the first depicts the oppression of workers by the ruling class and their ultimate triumph through organization and unity, while the second, showing a group of women looking through a telescope, offers the possibility of a harmonious relationship with society and the universe.<\/p>\n \n\tBy 1974, Pinochet\u2019s armed forces had overthrown Salvador Allende\u2019s democratically elected socialist government, Allende had committed suicide rather than face capture, and Esc\u00e1mez had self-exiled to Costa Rica, where he spent the rest of his life. His Chill\u00e1n murals were painted over by censors and forgotten until, as part of a city-led heritage research project, they were rediscovered in 2021.<\/p>\n \n\tThe process of restoring the murals consists of the painstaking removal of up to 12 layers of white paint, followed by conservation of the art. As of this month, four specialists have joined the UPA team. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe have a team of people with academic qualifications in the art world who will allow us to unveil the Esc\u00e1mez mural,\u201d the mayor of Chill\u00e1n, Camilo Benavente, said in a statement. \u201cFour professionals in the field, with extensive experience and academic backgrounds, were selected after a rigorous public competition. We believe that with this team we will move forward in this process, which is so significant for the city and its history, marking a milestone in the restoration of a mural that represents a very complex moment in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/long-lost-art-by-chilean-muralist-julio-escamez-restoration-1234793027\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/escamez-beginning-end-mural-955×1024-1.webp?w=955″] Two 1970s murals by Chilean artist Julio Esc\u00e1mez, long thought to have been destroyed by Augusto Pinochet\u2019s military regime, are currently in the process of being uncovered and restored. The Heritage Unit of the Municipality of Chill\u00e1n (UPA), which has been carrying out the work, announced this week that they expect to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2054942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2054942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2054942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2054942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2054942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}