2023 / This dissertation addresses the first generation of academically-trained artists from Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela who studied in Europe through government scholarships as a way to understand how regional fine arts institutions emerged through transatlantic dialogues with French and Italian artistic institutions. I follow the travel accounts of three artists from the Northern Andes – Epifanio Garay, Arturo Michelena, and Luis Cadena, who were the first beneficiaries of government scholarships and who played decisive roles in the foundation of art academies in their native countries. Each chapter compares the initial motivations of each government to sponsor these artists’ travels, the official participation of these governments in international events, the emerging efforts to build local artistic institutions, the individual experience of these artists in either Paris or Rome, and how the paintings produced in Europe were received in their home countries. In doing so, this study reveals a polyphony of strategies, motivations, and actors interested in importing European culture into the region of the former Nueva Granada.