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 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 ...

, Argentina in 1866. Taking an early interest in the canvas, he studied at the local Society for the Stimulus of Fine Arts under painter Francisco Romero. He attended the prestigious

Accademia Albertina The Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti ("Albertina Academy of Fine Arts") is an institution of higher education in Turin, Italy History In the first half of the seventeenth century, there was a "University of Painters, Sculptors and Architects" ...

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, where he was trained by painter

Giacomo Grosso Giacomo Grosso (23 May 1860 in Cambiano – 14 January 1938 in Turin) was an Italian painter. Biography After spending his childhood at Glaveno seminary, Giacomo Grosso enrolled at the Accademia Albertina in Turin in 1873, thanks to a schola ...

Ernesto de la Cárcova - Sin pan y sin trabajo

At the 31st Turin Fine Arts Exposition in 1890, he presented ''The Head of An Old Man'', a

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

drawing he sold to the King of

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Umberto I Umberto I ( it, Umberto Rainerio Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di Savoia; 14 March 1844 – 29 July 1900) was King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his assassination on 29 July 1900. Umberto's reign saw Italy attempt colo ...

, for display at the

Palazzo Quirinale The Quirinal Palace ( it, Palazzo del Quirinale ) is a historic building in Rome, Italy, one of the three current official residences of the president of the Italian Republic, together with Villa Rosebery in Naples and the Tenuta di Castelporzia ...

in Rome. Returning to Argentina, he completed his best-known work, ''Without Bread or Work'', in 1893. Set in Buenos Aires' industrial

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during the severe recession that followed the

Panic of 1890 Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reactio ...

, the work is today displayed in the National Museum of Fine Art. Gaining increasing renown, he was invited to direct the Argentine Artists' Fellowship Program in Paris in 1902 and received a gold medal for his work at the Universal Exposition of 1904 in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

(United States). During his stay in Europe, he took an interest in sculpture, purchasing a number of reproductions of works in the

Berlin State Museums The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen ...

collections, including those of a number of ancient

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Chaldea Chaldea () was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BCE, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was ...

n, and

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busts and bronzes. Returning to Buenos Aires, he displayed a number of these works at the Buenos Aires Centennial Exposition in 1910 and was invited into the National Fine Arts Academy by its founder, fellow Realist painter

Eduardo Sívori Eduardo Sívori (October 13, 1847 – June 5, 1918) was an Argentine artist widely regarded as his country's first realist painter. Life and work Born to Genoese immigrants in Buenos Aires, Sívori had harbored artistic leanings during childho ...

He accepted a professorship at the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one o ...

and, continuing to participate in international events, he garnered a silver medal at a 1916 Paris Arts Exposition. De la Cárcova's designs were chosen to represent the

Argentine Centennial The Argentina Centennial was celebrated on May 25, 1910. It was the 100th anniversary of the May Revolution, when viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros was ousted from office and replaced with the Primera Junta, the first national government. Co ...

as the official medal, and as the great seal of the University of Buenos Aires in 1921. Founder of the School Superior of Fine Arts in 1923., an institution that absorbed Sívori's academy. The school is today part of the

National University Art Institute The National University of the Arts, in Spanish language, Spanish: ''UNA - Universidad Nacional de las Artes'', formerly known as IUNA - Instituto Universitario Nacional de las Artes, is an Argentine university established in 1996 as an incorporat ...

, Argentina's foremost institution of its type. Professor de la Cárcova bequeathed his collection of German sculptures for the creation of the Museum of Reproductions and Comparative Sculpture, which was named in his honor following his death in 1927. He was buried in

La Recoleta Cemetery La Recoleta Cemetery ( es, Cementerio de la Recoleta) is a cemetery located in the Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Recoleta Barrios and Communes of Buenos Aires, neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It contains the graves of notable people, includi ...

References

External links

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: obras de Ernesto de la Cárcova obras Universidad Nacional de las Artes: Museo de Calcos y Escultura Comparada Ernesto de la Cárcova
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carcova, Ernesto De La 1866 births 1927 deaths Artists from Buenos Aires Realist painters Argentine people of Basque descent University of Buenos Aires faculty Burials at La Recoleta Cemetery 19th-century Argentine painters 19th-century Argentine male artists Argentine male painters 20th-century Argentine painters 20th-century Argentine male artists