Two 1970s murals by Chilean artist Julio Escámez, long thought to have been destroyed by Augusto Pinochet’s military regime, are currently in the process of being uncovered and restored. The Heritage Unit of the Municipality of Chillán (UPA), which has been carrying out the work, announced this week that they expect to finish restoring the first of the murals by December 2027.
In 1969, Eduardo Contreras Mella, the mayor of Chillán and a member of Chile’s Communist party, commissioned Escámez to create murals for Chillán’s city hall. Escámez spent more than two years working on the paintings, which were unveiled in June of 1972.
The finished murals, titled The Beginning and The End, were situated in the building’s Hall of Honor, taking advantage of its double-height ceiling. Executed in the style of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, whom Escámez 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.
By 1974, Pinochet’s armed forces had overthrown Salvador Allende’s democratically elected socialist government, Allende had committed suicide rather than face capture, and Escámez had self-exiled to Costa Rica, where he spent the rest of his life. His Chillán murals were painted over by censors and forgotten until, as part of a city-led heritage research project, they were rediscovered in 2021.
The 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. “We have a team of people with academic qualifications in the art world who will allow us to unveil the Escámez mural,” the mayor of Chillán, Camilo Benavente, said in a statement. “Four 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.”
