Emilio Pettoruti

Emilio Pettoruti in 1916

Emilio Pettoruti (born October 1, 1892 in La Plata , Argentina , † October 16, 1971 in Paris , France ) was an Argentine painter.

Life

Pettoruti came from a family of Italian immigrants, his father was José Pettoruti and his mother was called Carolina Casaburi.

Due to his artistic ambitions, Pettoruti was already noticed in elementary school. With the support of his teachers, he became a student at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in his hometown in 1906 at the age of fourteen . In the same year he left this school in order to develop his own art.

For some time Pettoruti attended the drawing school of the La Plata Museum together with Emilio Coutaret . There, in addition to a few other opportunities, he soon discovered his interest in caricatures, and with the support of the MP Rodolfo Sarrat , Pettoruti received a state grant . With this he was able to travel to Italy for a long time in 1913 in order to study the painting of the Renaissance mainly in Florence . He was particularly enthusiastic about Fra Angelico , Giotto di Bondone and Masaccio .

During this time Pettoruti also made the acquaintance of several avant-garde artists who made him a. a. for the Futurism could inspire. Through the art critic Ardengo Soffici , he became aware of the literary magazine Lacerba and thus, among other things, Herwarth Walden and his magazine Der Sturm . Before the outbreak of World War I , he visited Walden and his Sturm gallery in Berlin . The Galeria Gonnelli in Florence had been interested in Pettoruti for a long time, and in 1915 he was able to open his first solo exhibition there.

In 1922 Pettoruti traveled to Milan , where he made the acquaintance of the Novecento artists' association . According to his own statements, he was enthusiastic about the artistic direction, but was bothered by Margherita Sarfatti and Mario Sironi , who wanted to subordinate art to Italian fascism .

Herwarth Walden brought him to Berlin in 1923 and showed his latest pictures in his gallery. Pettoruti stayed in Paris until 1924, where he was friends with Juan Gris , Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso , along with many others . In 1924 he returned to Argentina and in the same year was able to show a large exhibition of his works in Buenos Aires . The pictures were shown in the Galeria Witcomb on Calle Florida . This exhibition turned into a major scandal, as abstract painting , futurism , constructivism and cubism were enthusiastically celebrated by Argentine art critics, but also rejected by the public.

The next few years Pettoruti moved between Buenos Aires and La Plata. Maria Rosa González married there. In 1930 Pettoruti was appointed director of the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in La Plata. Pettoruti slowly became known in the USA and was able to present his works to the public for the first time in North America in 1942 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art .

Argentina’s art policy became increasingly restrictive during Juan Perón’s presidency , and Pettoruti resigned in protest. In 1952 he left Argentina forever and traveled to Europe. He settled in Paris and stayed there until the end of his life. Emilio Pettoruti died of kidney failure two weeks after his 79th birthday and, according to his last wish, his ashes were scattered over the Río de la Plata .

Works (selection)

photos

• El Sifón . 1915.
• La grotta azzurra di Capri . 1918.
• Pensierosa . 1920.
• Arlequin . 1928.

Books

• A painter before the mirror . Ed. Stockcero, Buenos Aires 2006. ISBN 978-987-1136-53-7 .

literature

Essays

• Emilio Pettoruti . In: Emmanuel Bénézit (Gegr.), Jacques Busse (Ed.): Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs , Vol. 10: Mullert - Pinto Pereira . 4th ed. Gründ, Paris 1999. ISBN 2-7000-3020-6 .
• Harper Montgomery: Futurist confrontations and other modes of registering modernity. Buenos Aires 1924-1926 . In: Futurism in Latin America (= International yearbook of futurism; Vol. 7). DeGruyter, Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-11-052783-4 . Pp. 60-85.
• Marcelo Pacheco: Argentina . In: Edward J. Sullivan (Ed.): Latin American Art in the 20th century . Phaidon Press, London 1996. ISBN 0-7148-3210-3 .

Books

• Jacqueline Barnitz: Twentieth Century Art in Latin America . University of Texas Press, Austin 2001. ISBN 0-292-70858-0 .
• Patrick Frank (Ed.): Readings in Latin American Modern Art . Yale University Press, New Haven 2004.
• Edward Lucie-Smith: Latin America art of the 20th century . 2nd edition Thames & Hudson, London 2004.
  • German: The art of Latin America in the 20th century . Lichtenberg Verlag, Munich 1997. ISBN 3-7852-8401-2 .
• María de las Mercedes Reitano: Peinture et modernité en Argentine. Le rôle d'Emilio Pettoruti . Université de Paris 1997. (dissertation)
• Daniel E. Nelson: Five central figures in Argentine avant-garde art and literature. Emilio Pettoruti, Xul Solar , Oliverio Girondo , Jorge Luis Borges , Norah Borges . University of Texas Press, Austin 1989. (Dissertation)
• Edward J. Sullivan: Pettoruti . Fundación Pettoruti, Buenos Aires 2004. ISBN 950-889-089-4 .

Individual representations

1. ↑ today part of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata
2. ↑ founded in 1898 by the photographer Alejandro Witcomb .