The rare and exquisite still lifes by the Bogotá painter Alberto Iriarte (1920-1993), known as “Mefisto,” have been the country's best-kept artistic secret, even though some have been exhibited in Paris, Barranquilla, or Bogotá, more due to the complicity of their owners than the will of the artist. Today, however, the pages of Colombian art could not be written without including the name “Mefisto” among the greats. This brilliant architect, who lived in Europe, worked with Sert in New York, and resided in Caracas, decided one day “without any disappointment,” as García Márquez says: to isolate himself from the world in an austere country house, where, with the complicity of dawn, he painted, with serene precision, the most beautiful still lifes in the history of national art. Without signature, without date, and almost always without title, these paintings show the artist's preference for the past and his disinterest in the fashion of the moment. From those rare, very rare, Mefistos, we publish the most complete selection made to date.