Antonio Berni - Argentina

Delesio Antonio Berni (14 May 1905 13 October 1981) was a figurative artist, born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. He worked as a painter, an illustrator and an engraver. His father, Napoleón Berni, was an immigrant tailor from Italy. His mother, Margarita Picco, was an Argentinian, daughter of Italians settled in Roldán, a nearby town.

By 1930 Berni was married and had a daughter. Shocked by the news of a military coup d'état in Buenos Aires (see Década Infame), he decided to go back, and settled first in the countryside, and then in Rosario, where he worked in the town hall. He organized an association of artists and students, and was briefly a member of the local Communist Party.

In 1932 he exposed his surrealist paintings. It was the first display of this art movement in Latin America, and the public was not accustomed to it; the critics condemned it.

In 1945 Berni painted one of 12 frescos on the cupola of Edifício Pacífico in Florida Street, Buenos Aires. Today the building houses the shopping arcade Galerías Pacífico where his work is still visible after 4 more frescos were added in 1990.

From 1951 to 1953 he lived in Santiago del Estero, a province in the Argentine north-west which had suffered and was still suffering massive ecological damage, mainly overexploitation of the quebracho tree (for its tannin and its hard, durable timber) by a few landowners who exploited their workers. In the following years, Berni's works reflected this natural and social tragedy. In 19551956 he painted the series Chaco, depicting the similar situation in Chaco; it was exhibited in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Bucharest and Moscow.

By this time he also painted some suburban landscapes, and then he invented two stock characters that would make his works recognizable worldwide, Juanito Laguna and Ramona Montiel.

A number of his paintings are on display in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires.
[from Wikipedia]