Waldo Nahuel Museum

The Artist

Painting the light of two worlds

Waldo Nahuel Garrido was born in Rancagua and studied at the Instituto O'Higgins. He began painting at fourteen, forming a small art academy with the teacher Edith Soriano and exhibiting at the Municipality of Rancagua, in those years on Calle Germán Riesco.

He studied philosophy and French at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile before entering the School of Fine Arts, where José Balmes — alongside Aída Poblete and Gustavo Carrasco — became his greatest teacher.

After several exhibitions in Santiago in an accomplished semi-abstract style, he carried his search into Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Expressionist territory. He travelled to Germany to exhibit Valparaíso and its hidden corners, and his paintings now hang in private collections across Chile, Germany, Hungary and Sweden.

For the past thirty-plus years he has lived and painted on Cerro Alegre, Valparaíso — the port city whose steep streets, together with the villages of the Danube, fill this collection.

Waldo Nahuel in his studio, beside one of his paintings — Waldo Nahuel in his studio, Cerro Alegre, Valparaíso

Machalí, la Hacienda — oil painting by Waldo Nahuel — Machalí, la Hacienda — oil on canvas, 103 × 70 cm

The Work

Streets known by heart

Nahuel's work returns, again and again, to the streets he knows by heart: the steep cerros of Valparaíso — Bellavista, Cordillera, Santo Domingo, Yungay — where ochre façades lean into the sea light and every passage climbs toward the sky.

His canvases also travel far from the Pacific. A long connection with Hungary fills the collection with the riverside villages of Nagymaros and Szentendre, the old towns of Sopron and Kőszeg, and the banks of the Danube — rendered in the same warm, generous impasto he brings to his native port city.

Working exclusively in oil — on wood, canvas, and board — Nahuel builds his scenes from thick, luminous strokes of gold, terracotta, and sea-green, closer to memory than to photograph.

The Collection

From Valparaíso to the Danube

Every painting is an original oil, signed by the artist. Click any work to see it in detail and add it to your viewing list.

Private Viewings

See the paintings in person

Oil deserves to be seen in the flesh — the texture, the light, the scale. The collection is on view at the Waldo Nahuel Museum in Historic Ybor City, Tampa, Florida. Request a private viewing and we will confirm a date with you personally.

Viewings are relaxed and unhurried. Come alone or bring company; there is no obligation to purchase.

Your viewing list

Browse the collection and add works you'd like to see.

About the Museum

This private, not-for-profit museum was created by Captain Eric Schiller, retired sea captain, Ybor City entrepreneur, and published art historian, to introduce the public to Waldo Nahuel's extraordinary work.