Still life. 1960.

Oil on foam board. Measurements: 42.6 x 29.1 cm / 16.77 x 11.45 in. Signed and dated in the lower right corner, framed work.

Santiago Eugenio Daneri (Buenos Aires, 1881 - 1970) is probably the most technically virtuous artist of the Escuela de la Boca. With a reduced palette he has managed to generate expressive climates in his paintings, both in the urban landscapes of La Boca, Barracas and Maciel Island as well as in dense domestic interiors. We read Roberto Amigo in the cataloging of the National Museum piece: “Workers homes presents the characteristic low saturation of his painting, crossed by the lands and the grays. The motif of a sector of the slums was already common in his work since the 1910s, but with the entry of popular sectors into politics, his work takes on a new dimension: they are landscapes without figures, and yet dense materiality of the painting seems to signal its presence. This naturalistic charge takes him away from the metaphysical work of other painters of the same urban landscapes, to affirm the trace of the human”. (1) This description fully fits our still life: the slightly saturated, earthy, almost monochrome palette displays an archetypal scene from the popular sector. On a plank table, a clay pot and a ladle take us away from the vanity that this genre usually resorts to, focusing on the necessary, vital food. The high point of view, the contested shot, masterfully places the viewer in the place of the worker who approached the table, where the pot is empty.

Daneri was trained at the Academy of the Society of Fine Arts Stimulus, being a disciple of Eduardo Sívori, Ángel Della Valle and Ernesto de la Cárcova. He was a professor of painting at the National School of Fine Arts "Prilidiano Pueyrredón" and drawing at the National Council of Education. He held individual exhibitions in our country in the Retreat Rooms in 1920; at Moody in 1937; in Kraft -known as "Friends of the book"- in 1951 and participated in international exhibitions in Paris in 1937 -where he obtained an honorary degree- and in Viña del Mar, San Francisco and New York in 1939. He integrated the shipments to the First Madrid Biennial in 1951 and to the XXVI Venice Biennial in 1952. Likewise, his work was part of the group exhibition The Seven Argentine Artists of the Centennial Generation at the XXIII Provincial Salon of Plastic Arts of Santa Fe in 1946. In 1961, the National Museum of Fine Arts organized a retrospective exhibition on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Works of his authorship are part of the patrimony of the National Museum of Fine Arts, the Municipal Museum of Plastic Arts "Eduardo Sívori" of Buenos Aires, the Museum "Juan B. Castagnino" of Rosario and in the provincial museums of La Plata, Santa Fe, Córdoba and La Rioja. In 1910 he received the Bronze Medal for his work Figure of him, which he presented at the International Centennial Exhibition. The following year he exhibited at the first edition of the Salón Nacional. He obtained numerous awards and distinctions, including the Stimulus Award at the 1915 National Hall; the Second Prize in the National Salon of 1931 and the Second Prize in the Municipal Hall of 1939. He also received the First Prize in the National Salon in 1941; the First Prize in the Municipal Autumn Salon of Plastic Arts and the Grand Prize in the XXXV Salon of Plastic Arts for his work Loss of the son, both distinctions in 1945. In 1948 he was distinguished with the Palanza Prize and in 1965 he received his last recognition: the Gold Medal of the Honorable Senate of the Nation for his work La seamstress.

Notes:

1. https://www.bellasartes.gob.ar/coleccion/obra/8302/