Adolfo Bellocq (1899–1972) was an influential Argentine artist known for his lithographs. Born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

, Bellocq was self-taught in the art of xylography and

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

. He was appointed Director of the Lithography Workshop at Buenos Aires' renowned

Ernesto de la Cárcova Ernesto de la Cárcova y Arrotea (March 3, 1866 – December 28, 1927) was an Argentine painter of the Realist school. Life and work Ernesto de la Cárcova was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1866. Taking an early interest in the canvas, h ...

Fine Arts School, in 1928. Soon earning his first awards for in his evocative work portraying harsh working conditions then prevailing in Buenos Aires'

southside Southside or South Side may refer to: Places Australia * Southside, Queensland, a semi-rural locality in the Gympie Region Canada * South Side, Newfoundland and Labrador, a community in the St. George's Bay area on the southwest coast of Newf ...

slaughterhouses, Bellocq parlayed this accomplishment into the first Argentine Lithography Exposition, in 1931. Contributing to Buenos Aires' premier art periodical at the time, ''Claridád'', he began working closely with a number of the magazine's other contributors, forming what became known at the "

Boedo Boedo is a working-class ''barrio'' or neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The neighborhood and one of its principal streets were named after Mariano Boedo, a leading figure in the Argentine independence. It is the home of San Lorenzo de A ...

Group" (named after the southside avenue where ''Claridád'' was published). He also illustrated a number of books, notably a 1930 edition of José Hernández (writer), José Hernández's ''Martín Fierro''. Bellocq drew the attention of Buenos Aires art patrons like Francisco Colombo and Eduardo Bullrich and was awarded a silver medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937), Paris International Art Exposition of 1937; but, though Colombo and Bullrich financed the curation of over 400 examples, over 2000 of Bellocq's lithographs were lost over the years due to his having made them on newsprint and untreated wooden planks.

References

Museum of Drawing and Illustration, Buenos Aires.
Argentine printmakers People from Buenos Aires Argentine people of French descent 1899 births 1972 deaths Argentine lithographers 20th-century lithographers {{Argentina-artist-stub