OK wow

It has been far too long since I updated. I'm trying to digitize all my end-of-the-semester work but until then, here's an illustration I did for a drawing class. The theme relates to a family member of two generations or more back. His story is told below.


Charcoal on Rives BFK 22" x 30".


Final print after digital coloring 11" x 15"

José Roberto Melgar was the brother to my great-grandfather. He was involved in a Peruvian socialist group called APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance or Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana). In 1932, at the age of 19, he made an attempt to assassinate the president of the time, Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro. The president was shot in the midsection as he was leaving a Miraflores church. As the president was drawing his pistol, a presidential aide fired at José, hitting him in the neck. As he was fleeing the scene, José fired his revolver back again, hitting a colonel in the leg. José was captured later and was given the death penalty. The president recovered. It turns out Cerro had been shot 16 times prior to this attempt and referred to such wounds as "scratches". He had helped lead a military coup on his way to power and had been shot full of holes many times, even losing 3 fingers when grabbing the barrel of a firing machine gun. Melgar's sentence was commuted after 3 months to a 25 year sentence. It is this part of the story where the media sources stop. We know that Cerro was eventually assassinated - shot through the heart just one year later by another APRA member. And we know that eventually José Roberto escaped to Fairbanks, Alaska. But how and when he escaped is unclear.

You can read the first 1932 article about the assassination here: Time magazine. There are several other articles on the site as well.