THE MARTIN FIERRO

Canto XXII part 2. "Camping games".

Xylographic engraving signed on the block -in the lower left corner- and in pencil, on the base, next to the title of the work: "Canto XXII parte 2ª "Juegos camperos" / artist's copy". Measures. Engraving: 26.4 x 19.3 cm. Paper: 35.2 x 28.1 cm. Specimen in very good condition. The work is displayed framed.

Adolfo Bellocq made the drawings that he finally transferred to the quebracho to stamp his marvelous woodcuts. This is part of The Return of Martín Fierro, whose first edition dates from 1879. Before being published, they were exhibited in October 1929 at the Friends of Art Association.

In the first scene, four gauchos play cards. All with donkey-bellied hats, the one in the front right wears spurs and a drag. A guitar rests. In the background and in the shade of some trees, other gauchos play the taba. Two games that Fierro mastered with skill, as we read in song XXII: “(893) In nine and other games / I have an advantage and not a little, / and whenever I give it up / evil has no remedy, / because I know how to take of the middle / and sit the one of the mouth. (894) In the trick, the most painted used to put him in trouble; / when I get ahead I try, / I know how to have, like swaddles, / shot by shot the ace of spades, / or flower, or sure bet. (899) I carried a taba well, / because I know how to handle it; / He wasn't one-armed at billiards, / and finally from what I explain, / I say that even with pichicos / he was capable of playing”.

Adolfo Bellocq (Buenos Aires, 1899-1972), painter and engraver, began his self-taught training in graphic workshops, and in 1922 he traveled to Europe. He was head of the engraving workshop at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes Ernesto de la Cárcova from 1928, and professor of engraving at the Escuela de Artes Decorativas de la Nación. He organized the First Exhibition of Argentine Engraving in 1931. He won the First Prize for engraving at the XIX National Exhibition in 1929, and the Silver medal at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937. His work is represented at the National Museum of Fine Arts. , and in those of La Plata, Rosario, Santa Fe and Paraná. In addition to this emblematic Martín Fierro, he illustrated various other books, such as Airampo by Juan Carlos Dávalos, Historia de arrabal by Manuel Gálvez and Sueño de una noche de castillo by Ángel de Estrada.