Female portrait. 1965.

Pastel on paper. Measurements: 80 x 60 cm / 31.5 x 23.62 in. Signed and dated. Framed work, in excellent condition.

Berni portrayed this young woman with her head covered with a black scarf patterned with colorful flowers, leaning slightly to the left and looking to the right. Her big eyes stand out, a distinctive element of Berni art, with which her expression is intensified, in this case a melancholic countenance. Her hair is brown and her skin is brown. In this decade he developed a new series focusing on the figures of Juanito Laguna and Ramona Montiel, ”two characters invented by him to use as symbols of exploited childhood in Latin America, especially in large cities such as Buenos Aires, Lima, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico". (1) At the same time, he continued with the representation of peasants, mainly from Santiago del Estero, with special attention to women and girls. In that harmony we place this girl, perhaps a peasant migrant to the city, whose face expresses that suffering that Berni always captured from her compromised sensitivity. These works earned him both popular and academic recognition.

Antonio Berni (Rosario, 1905 - Buenos Aires, 1981) was an Argentine painter, printmaker and muralist. Son of an Italian tailor and mother of Italian descent, he began his approach to art at a very early age, as an apprentice in a stained glass workshop, and later painting at the Center Catalá de Rosario. At the age of 15 he had already exhibited paintings at the Mari Hall, and at 18 at the Witcomb Gallery in Buenos Aires, already receiving rave reviews. He studied in Madrid and Paris, and upon his return, his insertion into the local art world was definitive. He reflected in his creations the social problems of the 1930s in Argentina, and the terrible international context marked by Nazism, fascism, the Spanish civil war and the economic crisis. He did it in the portrait and in the scenes that capture everyday life, such as in First Steps of 1936, a work that won the Prize of the National Salon of Plastic Arts of 1940, currently in the National Museum of Fine Arts. Figura was the First Prize of the XXX National Salon (1940) and Lily, the Grand Acquisition Prize of the XXXIII National Salon (1943). Endless national and international awards and exhibitions followed. He was a member of the National Academy of Fine Arts, and the year after his death the first edition of the Konex Awards awarded him the distinction of Honor.

Note:

1. Marcelo E. Pacheco: Antonio Berni. Buenos Aires. Banco Velox editions.