The Salvadoran painter Benjamín Cañas is an internationally recognized artist for using the neo-figurative technique and the strategies of magical realism.

Acclaimed as one of the most important Latin American artists of the 20th century, he left his mark in the United States, where he spent the last part of his life and perhaps the most prolific. Like many Central American Modernists, he had an extensive education in the traditional skills of draftsmanship, perspective, and portraiture.

He attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington. Cañas’s paintings are both timeless and innovative. A leader of the Latin American avant-garde, he represented El Salvador at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1977. His works are in major art museums in Australia, Asia, Europe, and North and South America, as well as in numerous private collections. Though he spent much of his life in the U.S., he is widely known and revered throughout Latin America.