QUITO (EFE).- Chilean painter Carlos Catasse died this week in Ecuador, where he had made his home since 1965, the daily El Universo said Friday. He was 65.

Catasse, who was born Carlos Tapia Sepulveda in Santiago, painted ceaselessly until two years ago when he was diagnosed with an illness called amyloidosis, which affected his hands and left arm.

"He couldn't paint, it hurt his hands and his spirits began to sink but he battled right up to the end. Despite the pain, a week before he died he painted his last pictures. One of them was a small portrait of a little girl and he did some landscapes," his wife Marisol said.

The painter died Tuesday in Quito, and his remains were cremated in a cemetery in the Ecuadorian capital.

His daughter, Yananua Tapia, recalled that her father's paintings were always full of color and his friends called him "Palette" for his technique of giving color more importance than the drawing. Landscapes were his scenario and man the main character of his works.

When he invited friends to his studio, they were always impressed because every painting or portrait took him just 40 minutes. He always said that it couldn't be 40 minutes without 40 years of experience," Yahanua said.

His wife and daughter plan to open a gallery for a retrospective exhibition of the painter's works.

In 1986 Catasses won Ecuador's National Prize for Painting.

His works are exhibited in Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Peru and Germany. EFE