DriveCultural fieldwork biography

Chilean singer and songwriter Violeta Parra travelled through her country in the 1950s, collecting folk songs from rural musicians. She carried what she learned into radio programmes, records, her own songs and her visual art.

Violeta Parra

The story behind the card

Parra (1917–1967) came from a family of artists; her brother Nicanor Parra became one of Chile's best-known poets. She sought out elderly singers whose songs had never been written down, and her own compositions, above all Gracias a la vida (1966), gave that tradition new life. She also made arpilleras, pictures stitched from fabric, and in 1964 became, by most accounts, the first Latin American artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Louvre palace, in its Museum of Decorative Arts. Her work laid the foundations of the Nueva Canción Chilena, the Chilean New Song movement of the 1960s and 1970s. She died in 1967.

Türkçe oku

Şilili şarkıcı ve söz yazarı Violeta Parra, 1950'lerde ülkesini dolaşıp köylerdeki halk müzisyenlerinden şarkılar derledi. Öğrendiklerini radyo programlarına, plaklara, kendi şarkılarına ve görsel sanat çalışmalarına taşıdı.

Parra (1917–1967) sanatçı bir aileden geliyordu; kardeşi Nicanor Parra, Şili'nin en tanınmış şairlerinden biri oldu. Violeta, şarkıları hiç yazıya geçirilmemiş yaşlı halk müzisyenlerini tek tek buldu; başta 1966 tarihli Gracias a la vida olmak üzere kendi besteleri de bu geleneğe yeniden can verdi. Kumaştan dikilen resimler, yani arpilleralar da yaptı. 1964'te, çoğu kaynağa göre, Louvre Sarayı'ndaki Dekoratif Sanatlar Müzesi'nde kişisel sergi açan ilk Latin Amerikalı sanatçı oldu. Çalışmaları, 1960'lar ve 70'lerde yükselen Şili Yeni Şarkı (Nueva Canción Chilena) hareketinin temelini attı. 1967'de hayatını kaybetti.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Violeta Parra

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Chilean singer and songwriter Violeta Parra travelled through her country in the 1950s, collecting folk songs from rural musicians. She carried what she learned into radio programmes, records, her own songs and her visual art.

The story behind the card

Sources and further reading

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