Pancho Fierro

Francisco “Pancho” Fierro was born in Lima in 1807, the son of a priest and an enslaved woman of the household, and earned his living painting shop signs, bullfight posters and murals. His quick, humorous watercolours portray the tapadas, street vendors, friars, musicians and riders of nineteenth-century Lima, usually against an empty background that leaves the spotlight on clothing and gesture. He painted more than a thousand scenes, which were exported to Europe, Asia and North America, and the painter José Sabogal called him “the first Peruvian artist”.