Emilio Pettoruti

description

An outstanding Argentinean artist, painter and cartoonist, master of scenery, illustrations and mosaic technology, spent the last period of his long creative career in Paris. He was one of the most influential avant-garde artists of Argentina in the 20th century and became famous for his unique style, combining the tendencies of different art movements in contemporary visual art. Galleries and museums in Europe, the United States and other countries purchased the master’s works. However, most are in private collections; hundreds of paintings by the popular artist are exhibited annually at art auctions.

Key ideas:

– Having studied the lighting effects, the artist developed his system of colour solutions, focusing on the correlations and harmonies of shades, for which he experimented with different percentages of each colour in a particular work. At the same time, the artist considered colour in his paintings secondary, so he paid even more attention to the space of his compositions and the form of the objects.

– In Buenos Aires, Emilio practised the choice of musicians as a repeating motive of paintings, which first appeared in Europe. Musicians alone or in groups (for example, Quinteto depicts five street musicians in an almost abstract Cubist style) are of national importance because they are directly related to tango – an integral cultural expression of Argentina. Later on, he adds harlequins to the theme, who, like musicians, have a distinguishing feature – their eyes are almost always closed. For Pettoruti, these characters are “a useful tool for representing the human figure as an anonymous, generalized form, and not as a separate person.” The artist often combined these two themes, as it can be seen on the «Harlequin» canvas, where a character in a mask is playing a musical instrument similar to an accordion.

– Pettoruti initially included glasses, musical instruments, and masks along with bottles and vases in the still lifes. In his later works, objects are close to abstraction, and the entire composition is composed of bright and non-shaded colour planes, which tend to “align” the real shape of objects.

– Looking at the subject from all possible angles (above, below, from the sides and corners), the artist offers them to the viewer at the same time. In the later still lifes, Pettoruti focused on the world and included it in the plot as a “concrete element of the picture,” and not just a source of illumination. It is perfectly demonstrated by the canvas “Sol Argentino”, where sunlight is an essential part that gives the whole work a special effect.

– Pettoruti extended his original talent to stained glass windows, theatrical scenery and costumes. He was also interested in mosaics, and, not limiting the painting to a single texture, included a variety of materials, sometimes found at landfills, in order to catch the light in various ways and add textural properties to the final version of the work.

– In the following years, Pettoruti’s style advanced to absolute abstraction. After he returned to Europe in 1952, he became interested in the effect of design and ornamental pattern. Many of his works of the last decades are devoted to experiments with the geometry of patterns. At the same time, the author gave romantic names to his paintings concentrated on the communicative power of colour and the controlled organization of figures, consisting entirely of geometric fragments – “Summer night” (1953), “Winter in Paris” (1955).

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1892

1904

1909 - 1911

1913

1916 - 1922

1923

1924

1930

1940

1950

1960

1971

The birth of the artist

He was born on October 1 into a prosperous Italian middle-class family in the large city of La Plata. The modern geometric layout of the city with the “silver colour of change of tonality”, Pettoruti later argued, influenced his artistic aesthetics. Of all the interests, he chose the art of his grandfather, artist José Casaburi, inheriting his talent as a draftsman and painter.

He entered the local School of Fine Arts

At the age of 14, he entered the local School of Fine Arts. However, he left it very soon, preferring self-education and classes at the drawing school of the City Museum of Natural History, where, under the guidance of architect E. Koutare, he developed the style of original caricature portraits.

The first solo exhibition

Started demonstrating his paintings (mostly caricatures) in shop windows, published them in magazines. The administration of the Platense Buenos Aires newspaper provided its premises for the first solo exhibition of the artist, which consisted of forty-six works.

Went to Italy

He was awarded a scholarship for a study trip to Europe and went to Italy, where he studied Renaissance artists in Florence, copied paintings by Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Giotto and others, admiring the balance of their compositions, geometrically mastered proportions and colour solutions. In 1915, the first solo exhibition of the artist took place at the Gonelli Gallery in Florence, where thirty-five works were presented, including drawings and sketches for mosaics.

He lived in Rome

He lived in Rome, made friends with artists from the avant-garde circle of the journal Cronache d’Attualitá, including futurists Enrico Prampolini, Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carra. Then he worked in Milan, illustrating books, developing stained-glass windows and creating scenographic projects.

Lived in Vienna

Lived in Vienna for a short time. He was invited as an exhibitor to the prestigious Berlin gallery Der Sturm (Storm), where he presented 35 of his works. These creations received positive reviews from several art critics and his colleagues.

Returned to Argentina

Returned to Argentina to popularize the newest painting in his country. He organized his personal exhibition, presenting 86 works in the style of cubism, futurism and constructivism. The vernissage was noisy and scandalous: on the one hand, Modernism did not spread in Argentina, as in Europe; on the other, many understood that the arrival of new art movements was inevitable.

Was appointed director of the Museum of Fine Arts in La Plata

Was appointed director of the Museum of Fine Arts in La Plata. He worked hard, and his fame spread to North America. Met Chilean Maria Rosa Gonzalez, a critic and photographer, whom he married in 1941. The Buenos Airos Museum of Art hosted a group exhibition “Three Expressions of Modern Painting”, in which, in addition to Pettoruti’s works, paintings by Badia and Spilimbergo were presented.

Conducted a retrospective exhibition

Conducted a retrospective exhibition of his works of 1917-1938. The prestigious galleries and museums of the United States invited him to participate in exhibitions individually and collectively. The artist visited San Francisco with his first large North American exhibition. The Museum of Modern Art of New York purchased his work The Green-Green Cup in 1943. His retrospective show at the Peuser Hall was a success.

The large exhibition of the artist

A large exhibition of the artist was held at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Chile. Pressed by the ongoing harassment and dismissal of employees, the artist decided to abandon the post of the director of the museum and traveled around Europe. In 1953, he settled in Paris, where his last pictorial period began. He participated in exhibitions of the Duran-Ruelle Gallery, in the collective exhibition “Abstract Art, the First Generations of 1910-1939”, exhibited his paintings at the Museum of Art of St. Etienne (1957), participated in the large show “50 years of abstract painting”.

“The Artist in Front of a Mirror”

He continued his career as a painter, finally starting to work in the style of abstract painting, created mosaics and painted. The master wrote an autobiography, “The Artist in Front of a Mirror” (“Un Pintor Ante el Espejo”), published in Paris in 1968.