Víctor Luciano Rebuffo (14 February 1903,
Turin,
Piedmont,
Italy – 2 September 1983,
Buenos Aires,
Argentina) was an
Italian-born printmaker, illustrator, and
graphic novelist who lived and worked in Argentina.
Education and career
Rebuffo's family settled in Argentina soon after he was born. At the age of 17 he entered the National Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1926 as an art teacher. He began his career as an engraver and woodcutter a year later.
His style was both bold and socially conscious, strongly influenced by the social realism of the ''Artistas del Pueblo'' (People's Artists) art collective.
Art critic Julio E. Payró says that Rebuffo "stands out for the absolute clarity of his language, for its force of direct suggestion and, above all, for the beautiful conciseness of his images".
[Víctor L. Rebuffo xilógrafo](_blank)
Julio E. Payró, "Víctor L. Rebuffo xilógrafo", ''Ars'', Buenos Aires, a. 12, nº 57, 1951
Rebuffo's woodcut style has been compared to that of
Frans Masereel,
Käthe Kollwitz,
Max Beckmann and
Otto Dix.
[Julio E. Payró, "Frans Masereel", ''Nervio. Crítica. Artes. Letras'', a. 2, n. 15, July 1932, pp. 10–13] Critic Silvia Dolinko has noted "significant iconographic, stylistic and narrative similarities" with Belgian woodcut artist and precursor of the graphic novel
Frans Masereel.
[Victor Rebuffo y el arte al servicio del problema social]
Silvia Dolinko (2009) Conflictos en blanco y negro. Victor Rebuffo y el arte al servicio del problema social. XII Jornadas Interescuelas/Departamentos de Historia. Departamento de Historia, Facultad de Humanidades y Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Universidad Nacional del Comahue, San Carlos de Bariloche [Consideraciones sobre la tradición del grabado en la Argentina]
Silvia Dolinko (2016) Consideraciones sobre la tradición del grabado en la Argentina
Rebuffo himself acknowledged
Guaman Poma,
José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political lithographer who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...
and his contemporaries and
Frans Masereel as his primary influences: "The graphic story, projected as on a cinematographic screen with sequences of images that transmit the alternatives and incidents of a plot, has allowed, on all occasions that it has been used, to expand the social-historical knowledge of a people, its most ingrained customs and the events of the environment in which it is developed. Socially, it served a role of linking and disseminating ideas of popular content that claimed the most urgent rights of the masses. Such examples are, among others, revealed to us in the ''Guaman Poma'', a graphic chronicle of the Inca Peru of the conquest, the ''Calaveras y corridos'' of
José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political lithographer who used relief printing to produce popular illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists and cartoonists becaus ...
, a marked influence on the peasant revolution of Mexico, and the series of woodcut novels of Frans Masereel, which express with sharp features and cutting criteria the strange aspects of daily life."
[Declaración del artista, "Contraluz"]
Víctor Rebuffo, "Contraluz", Talleres Graficos Germano, Buenos Aires, 1979
In 1943 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Peuser publishing house, where he made illustrations for several books, among them ''Los Gauchos Judíos'' (The Jew Gauchos) by
Alberto Gerchunoff
Alberto Gerchunoff (January 1, 1883 – March 2, 1950), was an Argentine writer born in the Russian Empire, in the city of Proskuriv, now Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine.
Biography
His family emigrated in 1889 to the Argentinian Jewish agricultural colony ...
, ''Reinaldo Solar'' by
Rómulo Gallegos and ''Los Santos Evangelios'' (The Holy Gospels).
[Víctor Rebuffo - Cuento Gráfico en 18 Xilografías]
Cuento Gráfico en 18 Xilografías
From 1948 to 1970 he taught engraving as professor extraordinaire at the
University of Tucumán.
He held exhibitions in Argentina and abroad, including Brazil (
São Paulo Biennial
SAO or Sao may refer to:
Places
* Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD
* Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso
* Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S. ...
), Mexico, Spain, Belgium (Brussels) and Tokyo.
Major works
Rebuffo's greatest work is the
wordless novel ''Contraluz'' published in 1979. It is composed of 130 woodcuts which were completed between 1952 and 1953.
[Víctor Rebuffo, "Contraluz"]
Víctor Rebuffo, "Contraluz", Talleres Graficos Germano, Buenos Aires, 1979
He also published in magazines: ''Contra La revista de los franco-tiradores'' and ''Nervio''.
[AhiRa , Archivo Histórico de Revistas Argentinas]
Víctor Rebuffo, AhiRa , Archivo Histórico de Revistas Argentinas, 1933
Further reading
* Nora Kancepolski (2005), ''Victor L. Rebuffo. Rebelión. Obra Xilográfica 1927–1983'', Editorial la Cabra, Buenos Aires
* Patrick Frank (2006), ''Los Artistas Del Pueblo: Prints and Workers' Culture in Buenos Aires, 1917–1935'', University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque
* Marcela M. Gené, Silvia Dolinko, Víctor Rebuffo (2008), ''Víctor Rebuffo y el grabado moderno'', Fundación Nuevo Mundo
References
External links
Works of Víctor L. Rebuffo (1903-1983)Nervio magazine archives - AhiRa , Archivo Histórico de Revistas ArgentinasSeventy-five Latin-American prints : a survey of contemporary printmaking in eighteen countries of Central and South America.Víctor Rebuffo - MUNTREF Artes Visuales
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rebuffo, Víctor
1903 births
1983 deaths
Italian graphic novelists
20th-century engravers
20th-century Italian novelists