Beatriz González occupies a central position in Colombian art as one of her country’s most important living artists. Her career unfolded amid turbulence following the 10-year period known as La Violencia (1948–58), when the Colombian government encouraged modernization projects that promoted a narrow concept of Latin American modern art as sophisticated, international, abstract, and, most importantly, apolitical. As early as 1962, González began reinterpreting Western art’s most iconic works as a means to reflect upon ways in which high culture was assimilated in an underdeveloped country like Colombia. She soon began synthesizing these images with those of highly publicized current events, in a colorful, pop-inflected style that contrasted the political undertones of her paintings.