Juana Lumerman (1905 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 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 ...

– 1982) was a

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

who painted in both figurative and abstract styles. Lumerman graduated with a degree in painting in 1935 from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. Lumerman studied there with European trained teachers including

Aquiles Badi Aquiles Badi (1894–1976) was twentieth-century Argentine painter. He was born in Buenos Aires on April 14, 1894, and died in that same city on May 8, 1976. Education Badi studied in Italy and Argentina. He spent his childhood in Milan (Italy) ...

known for his Constructivist and metaphysical tendencies and :es:Emilio Centurion known for his command of volumes and form, as well as with Carlos P. Ripamonte a painter of an earlier generation known for his work in an

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

vein. In 1936, Lumerman won first prize in the VI Feminine Salon of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. In a 1993 essay, art historian Cesar Magrini evokes the period and describes Lumerman as "...a pioneer and an explorer of new paths. Those were years when one could count on the fingers of one hand those women who were permitted to paint, model or sculpt without its being considered a perversion." By the early 1940s, Juana Lumerman was showing her painting in Buenos Aires with a mixed group of her accomplished peers. In 1941,

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

invited several Argentine artists to represent their country in a US exhibition; the group included Lino Enea Spilimbergo,

Raquel Forner Raquel Forner (1902–1988) was an Argentine painter known for her expressionist works. Life Forner was born in Buenos Aires in 1902. Her father was Spanish by nationality and her mother was an Argentine of Spanish descent. As a result of fr ...

, Ramón Gomez Cornet,

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 ...

Emilio Pettoruti Emilio Pettoruti (1892–1971) was an Argentine painter, who caused a scandal with his avant-garde cubist exhibition in 1924 in Buenos Aires. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Buenos Aires was a city full of artistic development. Pettorut ...

and Juana Lumerman. In 1945, Juana Lumerman spent a year exhibiting, traveling and working in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Throughout Lumerman's career, dynamic images of

carnival Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typi ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

and

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

were to serve as counterpoints to more statically structured, more metaphysical,

cityscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' is ...

and still life themes in her painting. In 1948, Juana Lumerman traveled to Washington, DC for another invitational show and then toured the US. In 1950, the artist traveled to northern Argentina where much of Buenos Aires' intelligentsia had decamped in an attempt to avoid the constraints of

Juan Perón Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine Army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President of a military dictatorship, he was elected P ...

's visual aesthetic. Despite her travels to Brazil and to Argentina's colorful northern provinces, Lumerman's palette tended to be cool and tonally somber. The artist typically painted easel-size works in oil on board or canvas using a loosely figurative style notable for its fluidity of line and skillful paint handling. In a 1952 article the British fine art magazine "The Studio" names Juana Lumerman, Raquel Forner and :es:Mane Bernardo as the three key women in Argentina's visual arts scene. Possibly by choice (?), Juana Lumerman exhibited rarely in subsequent years, with notable exceptions being a solo show at the respected Van Riel Gallery in 1967 and a prestigious 1968 Salon Estimulo show with Argentine masters and contemporary artists including Carlos Alonso,

Juan Carlos Castagnino Juan Carlos Castagnino (November 18, 1908April 21, 1972) was an Argentina, Argentine painter, architect, muralist and sketch artist. Born in the rural village of Camet, near the city of Mar del Plata, he studied in the ''Escuela de Bellas Artes'' ...

, Riganelli, Policastro, Carlos Ripamonte Berni and

Raúl Soldi Raúl Soldi (27 March 1905 – 21 April 1994) was an Argentine painter and production designer whose work treated various subjects, including landscapes, portraits, the theater and the circus, and nature. His theatrical figures are renowned for ...

. In a 1978 newspaper interview,

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

Hugo Monzon quotes Juana Lumerman as saying: "I have always worked. I wish (now) that people might know my things, to break away from modestly, because ones work makes one naked." Juana Lumerman painted in her studio on Paraguay Street in downtown Buenos Aires until her death in 1982.

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