Felipe Lettersten

Felipe Tomas Lettersten (1957–2003)[1] was a Peruvian-born Swedish sculptor. Starting in 1986, Lettersten started preserving the Amazon rainforest cultures by casting sculptures of indigenous people.[2] He wanted to educate the Western world on respecting Indian cultures.[3] His cast sculptures are often placed on pedestals.[3] Lettersten was known to makes three copies of a sculpture, sending one to the tribe as a gesture of respect, the second was sold and the third copy exhibited.[4]

Lettersten's work Sons of Our Land features approximately 300 statues of various indigenous tribes of Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, and 76 of these statues are located at the Amazon Regional Museum (Museo Regional Amazónico) in Malecón Tarapaca, Iquitos Peru.[5] In 2014, Lettersten had 19 life-sized bronze statues from the exhibition Sons of Our Land (Os Filhos da Nossa Terra) were shown at Cultural Centre of the Peoples of the Amazon (Centro Cultural dos Povos da Amazonia) in Manaus, State of Amazonas, Brazil.[6][7] Museo de las Américas in San Juan, Puerto Rico has Lettersten's work in El Indio en América, an exhibition within the permanent collection featuring life-sized bronze and fiberglass statues of 22 different indigenous tribes.[8]