Anselmo Piccoli (September 4, 1915 – July 12, 1992) was an Argentine Abstract artist.

Life and work

Anselmo Piccoli was born in Rosario,

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

in 1915. Politically active as a

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

during secondary school, Piccoli found time to attend the local Gaspary Academy, where he was trained as a painter. There, he met

Antonio Berni Delesio Antonio Berni (14 May 1905 – 13 October 1981) was an Argentine figurative artist. He is associated with the movement known as ''Nuevo Realismo'' ("New Realism"), an Argentine extension of social realism. His work, including a serie ...

, an increasingly well-known Figurative artist, in 1932, and Berni became a mentor to the promising young artist. The two began a collaboration on ''Wounded Man'', presented jointly at the local Autumn Art Festival of 1935. The mural, performed in lacquer blown through a tube, proved to be a lasting percent for Piccoli by way of its texture. His work was awarded at a competition in Rosario in 1941 and he joined the Independent Artists' Group, a local

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

in 1942. The following year, Piccoli was awarded his first personal art exhibition at Rosario's prestigious Juan B. Castagnino Fine Arts Museum. Lydia 1959

Piccoli married Lydia Langbart in 1944 and, relocating to the

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 ...

suburb of

Burzaco Burzaco is a city in Almirante Brown Partido, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It has an area of 22.77 km2, holds a population of 98,859 (). It is 27 kilometres from Buenos Aires city, to which it is linked by the Ferrocarril General Roca Sou ...

, he devoted himself to family and, though he continued to paint, his art show appearances became less frequent. He was awarded numerous prestigious prizes, notably the inclusion in 1954 of a selection of his work at the Emilio Caraffa Fine Arts Museum in Córdoba. His technique continued to evolve during this interim and, creating a portrait of his wife in 1959, his use of

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ...

marked a clear trend in his work towards

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

. Collecting a body of geometrically-defined work, Piccoli obtained an exhibition in 1969, his first show as a painter in this genre. Piccoli made himself more available to art galleries in the following years, and he garnered numerous awards. Creating increasingly Figurative art, a genre popularized in Argentina during the 1970s by

Eduardo Mac Entyre Eduardo Mac Entyre (20 February 1929 – 5 May 2014) was an Argentine artist known for his geometric paintings. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina to a Scottish father and Belgian mother, Mac Entyre began pursuing his talent for sketches at the ...

, his work was presented in a restropective at the Wildenstein Gallery of Buenos Aires in 1983. His work continued to receive accolades, including the Grand Prize at the National Art Show of 1984. Continuing to paint, he died in 1992 at age 76. His widow donated ''Rhythms in Aluminum'', his last work, to the Castagnino Art Museum in Rosario in 2004, on the occasion of their inaugural of a contemporary art branch.

External links

''Museo Castagnino: Anselmo Piccoli''
File:Paisaje 1955.jpg, ''Landscape'', oil on paperboard, 1955 File:Otoño geometrizado 1967.jpg, ''Autumn Geometry'', oil on metal plate, 1967 File:Balanceo formal 1986.jpg, ''A Formal Balance'', oil on cloth, 1986 {{DEFAULTSORT:Piccoli, Anselmo Abstract artists Argentine people of Italian descent Artists from Rosario, Santa Fe 1915 births 1992 deaths 20th-century Argentine painters Argentine male painters 20th-century Argentine male artists

Life and work

Further reading

External links