Quinquela Martín, Benito (1890–1977)

Benito Quinquela Martín (b. 1 March 1890; d. 28 January 1977), Argentine painter and muralist. Quinquela Martín was born in Buenos Aires and adopted by a humble family. He attended a night drawing academy in La Boca, a picturesque Italian neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and was fond of painting the harbor by the Riachuelo bank. He was discovered by Master Pío Collivadino, who decided to support him in his career. In 1920 he received second prize in the National Salon of Buenos Aires; the same year he had his first individual exhibition in Rio de Janeiro with great success. He visited Europe and the United States and exhibited in Paris, Madrid, Rome, London, and New York. In 1970 he was invited to Cuba, where he had a one-man show in Havana.

On large canvases, Quinquela Martín painted views of the port and dockyards, showing the bustling life of La Boca in scenes that are a hymn to human effort. He was a colorist of exceptional talent, creating high contrasts with strong spatula strokes. His masterpieces are in the great American and European museums. He is the founder of the Fine Arts School and Museum of La Boca. The National Museum of Fine Arts had a retrospective of his works in 1990.

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vicente Gesualdo, Aldo Biglione, and Rodolfo Santos, Diccionario de artistas plásticos en la Argentina (1988).

Additional Bibliography

Sánchez Pórfido, Elisabet. Cándido López, Florencio Molina Campos y Benito Quinquela Martín como paradigmas de la plástica argentina. La Plata: Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, 1995.

                              Amalia Cortina Aravena