Pueyrredón, Prilidiano (1823–1870)

Prilidiano Pueyrredón (b. 24 January 1823; d. 3 November 1870), Argentine painter and architect. Pueyrredón was born in Buenos Aires, the son of the former Supreme Director Juan Martín de Pueyrredón. From the time he finished grammar school at age twelve until 1849, he spent more time in Europe than in Argentina. He earned an engineering degree from the Institut Polytechnique in Paris and began his painting career during his early European travels.

As an architect, Pueyrredón designed both public and private structures, including the mansion that is now the presidential residence at Olivos in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. He also undertook projects of architectural restoration. However, he was above all a portraitist in the neoclassical tradition. He has left portraits of Manuelita Rosas and his own father, as well as of other politically or socially prominent figures. Pueyrredón also painted landscapes and realistic country scenes, in both oil and watercolor. Like the portraits, these have documentary value over and above their artistic merit (which is probably greater in the watercolors). He is remembered as Argentina's outstanding nineteenth-century painter.

See alsoArchitecture: Architecture to 1900; Art: The Nineteenth Century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. L. Pagano, Prilidiano Pueyrredón (1945).

Bernard S. Myers, ed., McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Art (1969), vol. 4, p. 453.

Bonifacio Del Carril, Prilidiano Pueyrredón (1823–1870) (1970).

Additional Bibliography

Chianelli, Trinidad Delia. "Prilidiano Pueyrredón, pionero de la pintura argentina." Todo Es Historia 35:410 (September 2001): 38-42.

                                            David Bushnell