Felipe Lettersten

{{Short description|Swedish sculptor}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Felipe Lettersten

| alt = Felipe Lettersten

| birth_date = {{birth date|1957|06|11}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|2003|11|11|1957|06|11}}

| known_for = Sculptor

}}

Felipe Tomas Lettersten (1957–2003){{Cite web|url=http://www.invaluable.com/artist/lettersten-felipe-tomas-6fy1e0u7tj|title=Felipe Tomas Lettersten Works on Sale at Auction & Biography|website=Invaluable|access-date=2017-05-10}} was a Peruvian-born Swedish sculptor. Starting in 1986, Lettersten started preserving the Amazon rainforest cultures by casting sculptures of indigenous people.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/15/arts/sculptor-preserves-amazon-images.html|title=Sculptor Preserves Amazon Images|last=Brooke|first=James|date=1991-07-15|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-05-10|issn=0362-4331}} He wanted to educate the Western world on respecting Indian cultures.{{Cite web|url=http://bird.miamisci.org/tribal/index.html|title=Tribal Spirits|website=Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031222132837/http://bird.miamisci.org/tribal/index.html|archive-date=2003-12-22|access-date=2017-05-14}} His cast sculptures are often placed on pedestals. 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.{{Cite web|url=http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/aec444162c475f59af8cf91c3806d622|title=PERU: MUSEUM DISPLAY OF INDIGENOUS TRIBES SCULPTURES|website=AP Archive|access-date=2017-12-05}}

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.{{Cite book|title=Moon Peru|last=Dubé|first=Ryan|publisher=Avalon Publishing|year=2014|isbn=1612386229}} 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.{{Cite news|url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/travel/sns-mct-bc-wlt-brazil-manaus-20140527-story.html|title=Manaus is Brazil's jewel of the Amazon jungle|last=Whitefield|first=Mimi|date=2014-05-27|work=Chicago Tribune|access-date=2017-12-05|language=en-US}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.miamiherald.com/living/travel/caribbean-travel/article1964416.html|title=Manaus: Jewel of the Amazon Jungle|date=2014-05-17|work=Miami Herald|access-date=2017-12-05|language=en}} 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.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/roughguidetopuer0000keel|url-access=registration|title=The Rough Guide to Puerto Rico|last=Keeling|first=Stephen|publisher=Penguin|year=2011|isbn=1405382635}}