Berni, Antonio (1905–1981)

Antonio Berni (b. 14 March 1905; d. 13 October 1981), Argentine painter. Berni was born in Rosario, where in 1916 he studied at the Centre Catalá under Eugenio Fornels and Enrique Munné. In 1925 he went to Madrid, and then to Paris, where he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under André Lothe and Othon Friesz. The influence of the surrealists Salvador Dali and Giorgio de Chirico is evident in his early works. Berni met the Mexican David Alfaro Siqueiros in Buenos Aires in 1933, after which he favored representation in his work. In the following decades Berni developed his style in neorealistic, narrative compositions. His creation of two folk figures, "Juanito Laguna" and "Ramona Montiel," constitutes the visual and conceptual synthesis of his attempts to incorporate decorative elements in his art. Berni's creative imagination and enthusiasm were manifest until his last days, when he created three-dimensional animals in assemblages with mannequins, a curious return to the surrealistic output of his early years. Berni received the first prize for painting at the National Salon of Buenos Aires (1937) and the Grand Acquisition Prize, also at the National Salon (1940).

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Centuryxml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

José Viñals, interviewer, Berni, palabra e imagen (1976).

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

Additional Bibliography

Glusberg, Jorge. Antonio Berni. Buenos Aires: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1997.

                             Amalia Cortina Aravena