Along with Masacre - 10 de abril (1948) and La violencia (1962), The Dead Student—also known as The Vigil—is one of Alejandro Obregón’s most significant political works. Created in 1956, the painting won the first Colombian edition of the Guggenheim Award and, after being shown in New York as one of the international finalists for that same prize, was acquired by the Pan American Union. The work can be interpreted as a protest against the authoritarian turn that the government of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957) had taken in Colombia after having reached an agreement with civil leaders. The piece refers to the act that led to this authoritarian change: the killing of a group of students perpetrated by the police in Bogotá during the protests of June 8-9, 1954. Without narrating the killings in a literal manner, Obregón evokes them by commemorating the victims through an image high in pathos and symbolism. In the form of a still life and using a language where cubist and Picasso-like echoes merge with a use of color reminiscent of Tamayo, Obregón presents the viewer with the profile of an abused and dismembered body that is lying on a wooden table with its mouth open in a heartbreaking cry of pain. Only through the title does the viewer know that the body, surrounded by symbolic objects and shapes, is that of a dead student. It is possible to find many references to the Eucharistic ritual in the scene, through which Catholics remember and renew the sacrifice of Jesus. From this viewpoint, the table represents the altar where mass is celebrated, while the student’s body analogically substitutes the body of Christ. However, from a secular perspective, in which the student-victim is not a god meant to be reborn, but a man, as the reference to Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp seems to indicate1 with the dissected forearm and the darkened hand. The holy chalice standing behind the body also alludes to the passion and death of Jesus. Meanwhile, the cock in the forefront is charged with a broader significance that insinuates the idea of vigilance, courage, and bravery in denouncing and resisting the dictatorship. It should be noted that when Obregon created this piece, he had just returned from a long period in France, where the cock is an important patriotic and republican symbol used, for instance, in the times of the French Revolution in opposition to the monarchic fleur-de-lis. In that country, the cock is also a recurring image in sculptures of those who have fallen in war, an allegorical meaning referenced in this piece, where those killed by their homeland are commemorated in a singular manner. Born in Barcelona, Colombian artist Alejandro Obregón spent most of his childhood between Europe and the United States. He attended art classes irregularly in Boston and Barcelona, where in 1940 he was named Colombian Vice Consul. Four years later, he returned to Colombia, where he positioned himself as a young hope of the national art scene. His paintings from the second half of the 1940s were intersected by multiple influences: Cézanne and Picasso being among the international influences and Gómez Jaramillo the national influence. One of his significant works from this period was Masacre - 10 de abril (1948), which took its inspiration from Picasso’s Guernica to discuss the killings that followed the murder of liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitán on April 9, 1948. That same year, he was named director at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Bogotá, a position he left a year later to continue his training in France, where he studied the fresco technique, assimilated cubism, and began to include symbolic elements in his works. Before returning to Colombia, he first exhibited at the Galerie Creuze in Paris (1954) and then showed at the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C. (1955), where he established himself as a prominent artist of the Colombian avant-garde. He then achieved significant recognition: he participated in the 1955 São Paulo Biennale; the Museum of Modern Art acquired his painting Souvenir of Venice (1955); Ganado ahogándose en el Magdalena—a piece that marked the transition of his work from geometric structures from his French period to a more expressionist spontaneity—received first prize at the Gulf-Caribbean Exhibition organized by José Gómez Sicre at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (1956). That same year, Obregón’s success was confirmed by the Guggenheim International Award, which he received for The Dead Student (The Vigil) in the Colombian category. He spent some time in France and the United States (1957-1958) where he came into contact with informalism and action painting, increasing the gesturality and lyricism in his works. Some of his works during this period touched on abstractionism. However, Obregón’s paintings simultaneously incorporated emblems of his nation, such as the condƒor, the mojarras, barracudas, volcanoes and bulls, among others. After reaching his artistic zenith, with the acclaim of critics and the public, in 1966 Obregón abandoned the use of oil in favor of acrylic paint, and in 1968 he moved to Cartagena. These last two milestones opened up a new phase in his work, which continued without significant variations throughout the rest of his career.