No title. 1951.

Tempera on cardboard, signed and dated. Measures 30 x 26 cm. Framed artwork.

One of the usual phrases of Santiago Cogorno, who alternated his residence between Argentina and Italy all his life, was: "When I'm in Italy I paint America and when I'm in Argentina I paint Europe" (1) The present work, of a neoclassical nature, is places his gaze towards the old world, while it is possible to observe the influence of his first teacher, Raúl Soldi, in the classic profile of the character and in the sky blue background. Cogorno met Soldi when he was just seven years old, in Italy. However, this neoclassicism is very personal, disruptive, synthetic, and made with a free brushstroke. The great Italian art critic Franco Russoli maintained that Cogorno's archaic gaze threaded new stylistic motifs, "with profound lyricism that moves the struggle between memory and emotion, between the reasons of culture and the rights of feelings." (Milan, 1962).

Santiago Cogorno (Buenos Aires, 1915-2011), one of the most technically gifted artists in our plastic history, studied with Raúl Soldi, Atilio Bernasconi and later at the Brera Academy in Milan, alternating his residence between Italy and Argentina. In 1949 he made his first personal exhibition at the Saint Moritz gallery (Switzerland), and continued in Basel, the San Pablo Biennale, in Milan, Florence, Genoa, Rome, Paris, and in numerous Argentine galleries, among which the Made at the Witcomb gallery, which was bought en bloc by a collector. He won the Palanza Prize (1956), the National Hall Honor Prize (1958), the Critics' Prize for the best artist of his generation (1966), and the Konex Prize (1982), among others.

Note:

1. Quoted in Heriberto Arbolave: The American Art of Santiago Cogorno. Buenos Aires: Online Art, 2012, p.11.