Helga Krebs, Between Chile and Mexico. A Tour of her pictorial work (1967-2010)

Abstract

The work of the painter Helga Krebs is almost unknown both in Mexico and in Chile. Before her exile in Mexico in 1973, she played a prominent role in the aesthetic-political program of the Unidad Popular. From 1973 until the year of her death,
in 2010, Krebs lived in the northern city of Hermosillo, Sonora, where she produced a vast plastic work. Through the analysis of some of her works, we will argue that the work created in Mexico shows a break with that produced in Chile due to the territorial and internal exile experienced by the painter. The objective of this text is to describe the journey traveled by her works through abstraction, political realism and pop, and surrealism, to show its points of rupture and continuity.