Cecilia De Torres Ltd - Modernism: Montevideo & Buenos Aires 1930-1960
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
			


	

Modernism: Montevideo & Buenos Aires 1930-1960 2001 - 2002 Winter

Modernism: Montevideo & Buenos Aires 1930s-1960s

In the years before World War II through the end of the 1960s, the two capital cities on the banks of the Rio de la Plata enjoyed a vibrant art scene, the result of great prosperity and an active trans-Atlantic dialogue with the European avant-garde. This exhibition consists of abstract paintings, drawings and wood constructions by artists who participated in the seminal modernist movements of the region: the Asociación de Arte Constructivo (AAC), the Taller Torres-García (TTG), Arte Concreto Invención and the Madí group.

Very few works of the 1930s survived the public's lack of appreciation, causing them now to be even more precious to the history of Modernism. The exhibition includes two delicate watercolor and ink compositions by Amalia Nieto, an artist who at 92 is the only surviving witness to the modernist struggles of the AAC. A bold composition in ink and a subtle painting by Augusto Torres, were inspired by the refined Graphisms of Paul Klee. A 1936 oil by Héctor Ragni on the other hand, is strictly geometric - composed of a circle, a triangle and rectangles. It was painted the same year that the AAC artists participated in the Salon des Surindépendants in Paris and re-issued the 1930-1 Parisian art publication Cercle et Carré as Círculo y Cuadrado in Montevideo. Published until 1943, it circulated abroad to institutions like MOMA and to artists including Piet Mondrian, Georges Vantongerloo and Julio González.

A 1947 wall relief by Gonzalo Fonseca uses thin wood strips to create a form reminiscent of two figures. A schematic drawing for an outdoor mural and a hanging sculpture/ceiling lamp by Horacio Torres attest to the effort to introduce Constructivism into all aspects of daily life. Two rare 1959 oils by José Gurvich in black and white drift from geometric to organic abstraction - all curves and rhythm, inspired by his efforts to apply the rules of musical composition to painting.

By 1956 when Volutas was painted, Alfredo Hlito (1923-1993) had abandoned the irregular frame or shaped canvas characteristic of the Madí group. Volutas is an exploration of color and its interrelation with dynamic form; its three curlicues in bright red, green and ochre on a blue background echo Kandinsky's concept that color is the materialization of the "inner sound."

Positive-Negative, two panels painted in gray, black and white by Antonio Llorens (1920-1995) investigates the optical possibilities of the space-color relation in opposition. This work exemplifies the Concrete-Invention and Madí group ideas as defined by one of its members, the sculptor Gyula Kosice: "Nothing similar to what is invented exists in the external world, it makes real what is non-existent, itself becomes a reality."

A painted border surrounds the all white front of the picture plane in César Paternosto's Evidence, 1969. By emphasizing the "outer" edge over that of the front, the familiar frontal viewing experience is put to the test by this oblique mode of seeing. The work shown here and in two other current exhibitions that study the sources and development of Abstraction in North and South America: Abstraction: The Amerindian Paradigm at the IVAM in Spain, and Abstract Art from the Rio de la Plata, Buenos Aires and Montevideo 1933-53 at the Americas Society in New York, have yet to be fully integrated into the history of 20th Century abstract art.

 

Gonzalo Fonseca

b. 1922 Montevideo, Uruguay - d. 1997 Seravezza, Italy

In 1942, Fonseca chose to leave his study of architecture in order to pursue an artistic career.  Working under the direction of Joaquín Torres-García, Fonseca joined the artist's workshop, where he participated in the group's collective exhibitions. In 1945, Fonseca traveled with other Taller Torres-García members through Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia to study pre-Columbian art.  This experience, along with numerous trips throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt during the 1950s, profoundly affected Fonseca's formal and theoretical approach to art. 

Although Fonseca left the College of Architecture in Montevideo as a young man, an emphasis on structure and architectonics is present throughout his oeuvre. As a teenager, he taught himself to sculpt in stone and later returned to sculpture after studying ceramics in Spain in 1953.

Fonseca moved to the United States in 1958, settling in New York. He later spent his time between New York and Italy, where he created large-scale marble sculptures. In 1965, Fonseca contributed a playground and site-specific sculptures to the Lake Anne Village Center in Reston, Virginia, a collaborative project with architects James Rossant and William Conklin. He was invited to create a monumental concrete tower for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and he also participated in the Faret Tachikawa Fund project in Tokyo, Japan in 1995. Fonseca also illustrated books by authors including Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Michel de Montaigne.

Artworks by Fonseca are included in the collections of: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin; the Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia, Spain; and the Palacio Libertad, Montevideo.

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José Gurvich

b. 1927, Lithuania – d. 1974 New York City

Populated with figures and images that reflect his Jewish upbringing, Gurvich’s participation with the Taller Torres-García and his profound admiration for the European art masters Breughel and Bosch, his artworks combine a unique personal style with technical mastery.  


Gurvich was born in Lithuania and moved to Uruguay with his family in 1932. There, he excelled at both music and the visual arts, and it was while studying the violin alongside Horacio Torres that the young artist was introduced to Joaquín Torres-García.  

Soon after, Gurvich joined the Taller Torres-García, participating in the workshop's exhibitions, writing for its publications, executing mural projects, and teaching.

In 1954 and again in 1964, the artist travelled to Europe and Israel, where he lived as a shepherd on the Ramot Menasche kibbutz. These experiences profoundly influenced the iconography of his paintings and sculptures. Moving to the United States in 1970, Gurvich joined his fellow Taller artists, Julio Alpuy, Horacio Torres, and Gonzalo Fonseca in New York City, where he continued to produce art until his premature death in 1974. The Gurvich Foundation was created in Montevideo in 2001, and is now known as the Museo Gurvich.

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Francisco Matto

b. 1911, Montevideo, Uruguay - d. 1995, Montevideo, Uruguay

At the age of twenty-one, Matto traveled to Tierra del Fuego and acquired the first Pre-Columbian pieces of what was to become a major collection and an important influence on his art. In 1962, Matto opened his Museum of Pre-Columbian Art housed ceramics, textiles, and sculpture from Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

In 1969, Matto won the first prize for the silver coin he designed for the Central Bank of Uruguay, awarded by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Geldgeschichte, an international numismatic association based in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1982, he was invited to participate in the First International Meeting for Open Air Sculpture in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

Art, for Matto, was a means of communicating with the divine, and the elemental forms of his sculptures became vehicles to facilitate the quasi-religious function of his art. In his Totem Series, Matto sought to develop the animistic principle through the liberation of the sign.

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Héctor Ragni

b. 1897 Buenos Aires, Argentina - d. 1952, Montevideo, Uruguay

Ragni´s family moved to Montevideo in 1915 where Héctor continued his art studies and activities. In 1918, Ragni sailed for Europe, living in Barcelona and returning to Uruguay after ten years abroad. In 1934, Ragni met Torres-García and joined the Asociación de Arte Constructivo. Active in the artistic and cultural movements of the time and a participant in the numerous exhibitions of the AAC and later the Taller Torres-García, Ragni had a strong graphic sense coupled with superb technical mastery. His line drawings are highly coveted as there are few canvases extant.

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Augusto Torres

b. 1913 Tarrasa, Spain - d. 1992 Barcelona, Spain

The eldest son of Joaquín Torres-García was born in Terrassa in the province of Barcelona. While living in Paris in the 1920s, Augusto met many of the great figures of twentieth century art, including Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, and Joan Miró. During the 1930s, he worked as an assistant and apprentice to the sculptor Julio González and studied drawing in Amedée Ozenfant’s Academy. It was also in Paris that Augusto developed his lifelong passion for tribal and primitive art. The artist was introduced to American Indian art by the painter Jean Hélion, a friend of his father’s. He later formed a great collection of American Indian art.

After Torres-García brought his family to Uruguay in 1934, Augusto participated in the Taller Torres-García. He later went on become a teacher himself. In 1945 he began his long collaboration with the Spanish architect Antonio Bonet. In 1960, he was awarded a grant by the New School in New York where he lived for two years. During this time, Augusto traveled to Montana to visit Blackfoot Indian reservations. From 1973 on, he divided his time between Barcelona and Montevideo. 

Augusto Torres’ art is included in the collections of the Museo Artes Visuales, Montevideo; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Santa Bárbara Museum of Art; the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Miró Foundation, Barcelona.

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Antonio Llorens

b. 1920, Montevideo, Uruguay - d. 1995 Montevideo, Uruguay

Antonio Llorens was a student at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, Montevideo and became a member of the MADÍ group during the 1940s.  Also a founder of the Uruguayan Group of Abstract Art, his work was in numerous exhibitions of the MADÍ group including the important 1958 Parisian MADÍ International, Groupe Argentine at the Galerie Denis René; the 1961 15 Years of MADÍ Art, Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires; Vanguardias de la década de los 40, Arte MADÍ Perceptismo, Museo Sivori, Buenos Aires in 1980; the 2001 Abstract Art From the Rio de la Plata, 1930s to 1950, Americas Society, New York and Tamayo Museum, Mexico City.

Llorens was an influential proponent of geometric and abstract art in Uruguay. He was commissioned to paint public and private murals, taught from 1962 to 1972 at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Montevideo, and in 1987 was awarded the National Prize Pintura INCA in Montevideo.  Llorens work is in the prestigious Blaquier Collection, the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, the Cisneros Collection in Caracas, Venezuela, and the CIFO collection in Miami, among others.    

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Horacio Torres

b. 1924 Livorno, Italy - d. 1976 New York City

Horacio Torres was born in 1924 when his father, the painter Joaquín Torres-García was living in Livorno, Italy. The family moved to Paris in 1926 where Horacio grew up, and was introduced to Alexander Calder's Circus. In 1934 the family left Europe to settle in Montevideo. Horacio was a member of the Association of Constructivist Art and The Taller Torres-García. In 1942 he traveled to Perú and Bolivia with his brother Augusto to study pre-Columbian Art. He painted two large constructivist murals in the walls of a hospital in Montevideo, a collective project launched by his father with the Taller Torres-García artists. In 1947, Horacio won a competition to paint a large mural for the offices of A.N.C.A.P. the state owned "National Administration of Fuels, Alcohols and Portland." After his father's death in 1949, he traveled to Europe, lived at the Maison du Mexique in the Cité Universitaire, and travelled throughout Europe visiting the great museums. Having returned to Uruguay, Horacio began collaborating with the architects Antonio Bonet, in Buenos Aires, and in Montevideo, with Mario Paysee Reyes, who commissioned large wall reliefs in cut brick for the church of the Archdiocese Seminary.

In 1969 he settled in New York where he began painting large representational canvases of nude figures. Curator Kenneth Moffet wrote “that this change to the figurative involved perceiving that his veneration for tradition and his desire to be modern were problematic and related impulses. His modernity had to be won, his traditionalism justified, and the friction that their conjunction generated proved fruitful." The figurative canvases were first shown at the Noah Goldowsky Gallery in 1972, and two years later, in an individual exhibition at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Horacio died in New York in 1976.

His work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Brandeis University Museum, Waltham, Massachusetts; Hastings College, Nebraska; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence; Musée d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Edmonton Museum, Alberta, Canada; the Biblioteca Nacional, Montevideo; and the Museo Blanes, Montevideo, Uruguay.

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César Paternosto

b. 1931 La Plata, Argentina – lives in Segovia, Spain

Around 1957, César Paternosto started creating artworks based on Geometric Abstraction. After attending a serial music concert, he was enthralled by Anton Webern's pregnant silences, which influenced the next development in his art. By the end of the 1960s, Paternosto moved the emphasis of depicted matter in his paintings to the outer-sides of the canvas, leaving the front blank. By shifting the attention to the sides, he was questioning the traditional viewing of paintings frontally, and as the range of the pictorial field was expanded to the sides, the three dimensionality of the painting turned it into an object. His 2012 essay, “Painting as Object: Geometric Forms and Lateral Expansions,” explained the evolution and continuity of his idea, from the early lateral vision canvases, to his most recent work.
In 1977, Paternosto began to travel to Bolivia and Peru to study the archaeological sites Tiwanaku, Ollantaytambo, and Machu Picchu. These trips marked an important turning point in his work sparking new formal explorations in form, composition, and color. By rooting his art in American autochthonous traditions rather than in the modern European model, Paternosto created a new and original type of abstraction based on the centuries-old woven textiles and sculptural stones of the Inca.
Paintings by Paternosto are found in various prestigious collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; the Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland; and the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany, amongst others.

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