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Endpoint: Reynaldo Luza

created on: 16/01/2026
by: bob (10472)

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Reynaldo Luza (born in July 1893 in the Barrios Altos neighborhood of Lima, Peru - died March 1978, Peru) was an illustrator, designer and painter.
In 1911, he traveled to Belgium, where, following his family's wish, he studied engineering and architecture at the Catholic University of Louvain. However, due to the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Peru after three years. He continued to study architecture at the School of Engineering in Lima for an additional year, but abandoned the career before completing the degree. It was at this moment that he began his career as an illustrator for local magazines such as Colónidas, Variedades, Cultura, and Monos y Monadas. In 1918, Luza y Argaluza moved to New York City, where he would begin a successful career as an illustrator working for magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Harper’s Bazaar.
A few years later, in 1921, Luza became Harper's Bazaar chief fashion illustrator. Although Luza was originally hired to work for Harper's New York City office, in 1922 he relocated to Paris, where he produced illustrations for various editions of the magazine.
While in France, Luza worked closely with some of the most important fashion designers, illustrators, and artists of the time, including designers like Paul Poiret, Jean Patou, the House of Worth, Coco Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet, Edward Molyneux, Elsa Schiaparelli, Lucien Lelong, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and artists such as Salvador Dalí, Carl Erickson, Max Ernst, and Man Ray.
He also contributed to French Vogue magazine.
In 1937, the government of Peru appointed Luza, together with Elena and Victoria Izcue, as artistic directors of the Peruvian pavilion for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris. However, due to war hostilities in 1939, Luza returned to New York City, where he continued his work for Harper's. That year he collaborated again with the previously mentioned Izcue sisters, in order to design the Peruvian pavilion for the 1939–40 New York World's Fair.
In 1940, Luza traveled across South America for several months. The trip reconnected the artist with his cultural origins, and sparked creativity. Once back in New York, he prepared a fashion collection presented in November of that year at the luxury department store Bonwit Teller's.
In the 1940s and 1950s, textile designs were receiving a certain attention, mostly because textile production was being promoted and was vital in the role of recovery for the economies of the Americas after World War II. When Luza started to design fabrics, he would utilize recovered motifs that he found in ancient Peruvian textiles, which he collected. He reinterpreted them in his "The Colors of the Andes" chromatic palette.
It was around this time that he also ventured into interior design.
In 1950, Luza permanently relocated to Lima, Peru, where he focused on interior and fabric design, becoming the preeminent 1950s and 60s Peruvian interior designer. A skillful artist, he kept working on multiple mediums such as drawing, painting, and photography. He became a painter of the landscape of the coast from until he died in the late seventies. His archive includes iconic images from Peru many which are from the mystical landscape of the Pacific Coast, and also Europe and America.
Through his talent, he promoted Peruvian identity by introducing Andean colors to the international fashion world.