Libero Badíi. Buenos Aires. 1960.

Vintage gelatin silver print, loose. Dimensions: 17 x 23 cm. On the reverse, there is a handwritten inscription in pencil: “Foto Grete Stern” and “Libero Badii 1960.” The work is in good condition. From the Luis Priamo collection.

Moving beyond her role as a documentarian, Stern creates a new composition here by capturing a detail of a work by Badii. Against a stark, solid black background, a hand emerges from an angular metal structure with a heavily worked surface—revealing a raw, almost organic, and weathered material, characteristic of Badii’s explorations with bronze and casting techniques. The raking light serves to highlight the complex texture.

Libero Badii (Arezzo, Italy, 1916 – Buenos Aires, 2001) was an Italian-born sculptor, draftsman, printmaker, and painter who later became an Argentine citizen. The son of a stonemason, his first encounter with this noble material took place in his father’s workshop. He studied at the Ernesto de la Cárcova Higher School of Fine Arts. Upon graduation, his outstanding academic performance earned him a travel grant to explore South America. In 1962, he held a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts; in 1968, he exhibited at the Instituto Di Tella; and in 1977, his work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. His numerous accolades include the Palanza Prize (1959), the National Prize at the São Paulo Biennial (1971), the Grand Prize from the National Arts Fund (1982), and the National Achievement Award (Premio Consagración Nacional, 1987). He was appointed a full member of the National Academy of Fine Arts. His work is represented in major national museums, as well as at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. The German photographer Grete Stern (1904–1999) arrived in our country while fleeing Nazism. Having been a student in the photography seminars at the Bauhaus, she met Horacio Coppola; the two married and traveled to Argentina, where she went on to have an extensive and successful career. In 1956, at the invitation of the influential critic and then-director of the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA), Jorge Romero Brest, Grete Stern established and directed the institution’s Photography Workshop—a position she held continuously until 1970.

Here, we see two facets of her photographic work: artistic documentation—linked both to her role at the MNBA and to the close ties she maintained with contemporary artists—and portraiture (represented in item 31). Her home, shared with Horacio Coppola, served as an essential meeting point for the cultural life of the era. This is reflected in her photographs of works by Líbero Badii and Alberto Heredia (see the following item), as well as in her portraiture.

Abel Alexander

President, Ibero-American Society for the History of Photography