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Born in Medellín, Colombia. Received his Baccalaureate at Colegio San José, in his hometown, in 1966. The same year, at night, studied painting and drawing at Medellin’s Institute of Fine Arts, receiving a half scholarship to continue his studies the following year, but instead enrolled in the School of Architecture of the National University of Colombia (1967), graduating as an Architect in 1974. Simultaneously with his architecture studies, he pursued his career as an artist, studied ceramics for two years with his Aunt Silvia Ferrer (1968-69), and taught at the Instituto de Artes and the Colegio Mayor de Antioquia, in the areas of architectural draftsmanship, and advertisement.


During the fourth year at the School of Architecture (1971), received First Prize at the II Salón de Arte Joven, a competition held at the local art museum, the Museo de Zea (currently Museo de Antioquia). Presented his first solo exhibition in Medellín at the Banco Grancolombiano (1972), introduced by the Colombian novelist Manuel Mejía Vallejo. The same year received an award at the III Salon de Arte Joven, and in 1973 a third award at the same salon, and exhibited in the Colombian cities of Cali and Popayan. In January of 1974, showed his work in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and in September visited Washington, D.C., where participated in a group exhibition at the Organization of American States titled “Five Artists from Medellin”, with great success. In November of the same year, was nominated to the National Award at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos, in Bogotá.


In 1975 was hired as Art Director and Creative of Leo Burnett and Novas, in Medellín, but resigned to concentrate in his first book, a novel titled “Te Quiero Mucho Poquito Nada” (I Love you, I Love You Not), which he illustrated and published underground with his own money. The book made him very well known in Colombia, and in the next year, while maintaining a very active career as a painter and draftsman, initiated the publication of an underground leaflet dedicated to art criticism entitled “Yo Digo” (Y Say)”. He also taught a semester at the Faculty of Industrial Design of the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, in Medellín, and continued visiting the United States. In 1976 published along with the Museo El Castillo his second book “Nosotros: Un trabajo sobre los artistas antioqueños” (a study on his contemporary artists from Medellin). In April of 1977 settled in Washington, D.C. His ideas and visual expression continued for long time exerting a good deal of influence on the younger generation of artists in Medellin.


In 1978 joined the Art Museum of the Americas of the Organization of American States, first as Assistant of long-time director José Gómez Sicre, then as exhibition designer, and lastly as Curator of Temporary Exhibitions, until 1989.


In 1988 co-wrote  “The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States” for the Bronx Museum of the Arts, acting as curator of two of the six sections of the exhibition with the same name. He has also published hundreds of articles and essays in Spanish, English, French and Italian, including essays for the catalogue of the Latin American Pavilion at the 51st and 52nd Venice Biennial.


In 2008 he published with Tragaluz Editors “Nosotros , Vosotros, Ellos, memoria del arte en Medellin durante los años 70,” revisiting most of the artists interviewed in the 1976 book “Nosotros.”  In 2011 published “Todos Ellos,” a book of selected poems he had written at age seventeen, and produced a portfolio of linocuts with the same name that served as illustrations for the same book.


In 2012, after an absence of twenty years from the Colombian galleries he exhibited in Medellin at Color y Forma Gallery. The exhibition was followed by the 2013 Tragaluz Editors “Felix Angel, trayectos,” a comprehensive book on his entire career; and in 2015 “Yo Dije” the entire collection of articles published in “Yo Digo” between September 1975 and January 1978.


Throughout a career that spans forty years, Félix Ángel has presented more 100 exhibitions in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panamá, Peru, Puerto Rico, and The United States; participated in more than 400 art fairs, collective exhibitions and international competitions in the Western Hemisphere and Europe; executed several public commissions, including Medellin’s Estadio Metro Station;  the libraries of Pereira’s Municipal Center (2006), and Bolivariana University (2014) in Medellin; and more recently the Agora Building at the Medellin campus of the National University of Colombia, his Alma Mater.


Felix Angel has received several distinctions and appointments, including awards at the biennials of Mexico City (1980), and Montevideo (Uruguay, 1981); Mayor’s Award for Visionary Leadership of the Arts (Washington DC 2011); and was honored by the Museo de Antioquia along with other eleven artists as “masters” of his generation (2014).


Has served as curator of more than 100 international exhibitions (including all countries of the Western Hemisphere, and Spain, France, Sweden, Norway, Italy, and Japan), writing most of the catalogues, and contributing with his advice to a number of institutions in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States; has lectured in more than twenty universities in the United States; has been invited as Juror in art competitions in San Salvador, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela and The United States; has served as Commissioner on the Arts and Humanities for the City of Washington (2002-2007). Currently he is a Contributor Editor to the Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) of the Library of Congress of the United States of America (2000-2010). In 1992 was called by the Inter-American Development Bank, in Washington, D.C., to implement the IDB Cultural Center, becoming its Curator, and serving as Director since 2000 until his retirement in 2011.


Public collections include those of the Bass Museum in Miami, the Blanton Gallery of the University of Texas, the San Francisco Museum of Art, The Detroit Institute of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, New York Public Library; Riverside Museum of Art, Washington D.C.´s Art Museum of the Americas (OAS), and Essex Collection of Latin American Art, in England.


In 2018 he organized and sponsored with Fundamundo a historical critical essay on the impact of the art biennials held in the City of Medellin during the end of the 1960s and early 1970s.  He also organized and sponsored the Encuentro de Artistas Grabadores Antioqueños (Gathering of Printmaking Artists from the Province of Antioquia) in 2018 and 2020; and curated an exhibition of selected printmakers presented in Washington DC in 2019-20 (at the IDB Staff Association Gallery), and in New York, in 2021 (at the Bronx River Art Center).

In 2021 he organized and sponsored a contest among printmakers in the Province of Antioquia, and with the help of a Coordinating Committee, began the organization of the third printmakers gathering, to take place in Medellin in 2022.