Luis Alvarez Roure (b.1976) was born and raised in Puerto Rico. At an early age he found his passion for representational art, teaching himself to do meticulous realist drawings of people. Even though his parents encouraged him to take lessons, he declined it, fearing that it could make him lose interest. He also had a great appetite for music and his father enrolled him in piano lessons, so he could develop his musical skills. The discipline and involvement his musical studies required outweighed the visual arts practice, abandoning drawing almost completely and because of this, music became the obvious choice for a career.
In 2000, Luis moved to New York to complete his studies in music with Germán Diez. While as a graduate student, Luis enrolled at the Art Students League of New York where he studied with Nelson Shanks. Because of his music studies, the time at the League was very irregular and he couldn’t dedicate himself at a full-time basis. However, this experience was a key point for his development as an artist, offering him a strong sense of direction.
In the 2018 article Luis Alvarez Roure: Composing In Paint, his strengths have been described as "his virtuosity and draftsmanship (…) taken directly from the paintings of past masters... and the empathy he so evidently feels with his sitters…” by Peter Trippi, editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine.
Mr. Roure is known for his figurative and still-life paintings as well as his portraits of iconic American figures such as Philip Glass, Joshua Bell, Larisa Martínez, Paul Volcker, Cándido Camero and Octavio Vázquez Rodríguez, among others.
His work is in American and European collections, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C, The Museu Europeu d'Art Modern in Barcelona, the Steinway Hall in New York and The Federal Reserve in Washington D.C.
As a finalist at the prestigious 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, Roure's work is included in The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery from October 26, 2019, through August 30, 2020, and subsequently will travel to four museums across the country from October 2020 through February 2022.
Roure has been featured in American Art Collector Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, Los Angeles Times, The Outwin 2019, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's "What's On", MEAM Catalog of Works, Downbeat Magazine, American Artist Drawing Magazine and the Art Renewal Center Catalog Raisonné. He has also been interviewed for Puerto Rico's leading newspaper El Nuevo Día and has appeared on television in the morning segment "Visiones" for NBC News.
* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 15th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.
