Ramón Silva (August 8, 1890 - June 17, 1919) was an Argentine painter of the

Post-impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

school.

Life and work

Ramón Silva was born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

in 1890. A self-taught painter, he learned the art beginning 1908 at the

atelier An atelier () is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices can work together producing fine art or vi ...

managed by Martín Malharro, whose display at a 1902 Buenos Aires art exposition introduced normally conservative Argentine audiences to the

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

movement. The promising student was sponsored by one of the nation's foremost physicians at the time, Dr.

Luis Agote Luis Agote (September 22, 1868 – November 12, 1954) was an Argentine physician and researcher. He was the first to perform a non-direct blood transfusion using sodium citrate as an anticoagulant. The procedure took place in Rawson hospital i ...

, for a 1911 scholarship that took him to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where he received influences from the Post-impressionist artists then current in Europe, particularly

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedic ...

. Returning to Buenos Aires in 1915, his watercolors received little acceptance and were judged to be more akin to the Postimpressionist approach of artists such as

Fernando Fader Fernando Fader (11 April 1882 – 25 February 1935) was a French-born Argentine painter of the Post-Impressionist school. Life and work Fernando Fader was born in Bordeaux, France in 1882. His father, of Prussian descent, relocated the famil ...

and

Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós (May 27, 1879 – May 29, 1968) was an Argentine painter of the Post-Impressionist school. Life and work De Quirós was born in Gualeguay, Entre Ríos Province, in 1879. He began to paint at age eight, and shortly ...

(the Nexos group), then still pariahs among most local critics. Preferring solitude, Silva worked mostly in and around the

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

Parque Tres de Febrero Parque Tres de Febrero, popularly known as Bosques de Palermo (Palermo Woods), is an urban park of approximately 400 hectares (about 989 acres) located in the neighborhood of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Located between Libertador and F ...

, an extensive park in the Buenos Aires district of

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

. Remaining in poverty, Ramón Silva contracted

pneumonia Pneumonia is an Inflammation, inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as Pulmonary alveolus, alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of Cough#Classification, productive or dry cough, ches ...

, which cost him his life in 1919 at age 28.

References

''Museo de Arte Juan B. Castagnino: Ramón Silva''

External links

Post-impressionist painters Argentine painters Argentine male painters Painters from Buenos Aires 1890 births 1919 deaths {{Argentina-painter-stub