Soldi Room

Carlos Manso was born in Buenos Aires in 1928. Self-taught, his work is part of the “naïve” current and was reproduced on Christmas cards for the benefit of various public welfare institutions, as well as in books dedicated to “naïve” painting published in Argentina and abroad. He had solo and group exhibitions in Brazil, Uruguay, Spain, Switzerland, France, Italy, Yugoslavia and Germany.
His extensive artistic training also included a career as a pianist accompanying outstanding lyrical singers and dancers of the Teatro Colón. He was a teacher and a fellow in various institutions, accompanying prestigious dancers and singers. Carlos was part of the Professional Institute of Lyric Art of the Ministry of Culture of the Municipality (IPAL) as a Master of Repertory and was an accompanying pianist in the cycles "La canción de Cámara" organized by Brígida Frías de López Buchardo for the Radio Nacional, Municipal y Provincia.
In the work “The Meeting”, he offers us a representation of a bucolic gaucho scene. This piece initiated the heritage collection of the Beato Angélico Museum.

Pietro Canonica was born in Italy in 1869. He studied at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin where he was instructed in visual arts by the teachers Enrico Gamba and Odoardo Tabacchi. He was a professor at the Academies of Fine Arts of Venice and Rome. He died in 1959 in Rome.
His sculptural style, characterized by absolute expressiveness and mastery in the execution of works, allowed him to create unique pieces that have transcended time. He participated in important exhibitions in Milan, Rome, Venice, Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels, Saint Petersburg, among others, receiving important awards. In 1950, the President of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi, appointed him Senator for Life for his outstanding artistic achievements.
In Rome, he obtained the concession of "La Fortezzuola" in the gardens of Villa Borghese, a 16th century building owned by the city of Rome, which he restored to settle there. Since 1961 his house has been transformed into a museum dedicated to him.
His achievements also reached Argentina. One of his works, a monument to President José Figueroa Alcorta, can be found in the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires,.
The Beato Angélico Museum holds two of his pieces, donated by an Italian religious order through the Argentine sculptor Walter José Gavito.
The work "Head of the Flagellated Christ" is a bronze production, we can see in it through the diagonal of the face and shoulders a perfect example of harmony and balance.

Antonio Sassone was born in Italy in 1906. At the age of 17, he emigrated with the rest of his family to Argentina, settling in Buenos Aires. He studied at the Ernesto de la Cárcova School of Fine Arts where he developed his interest in sculpture. With a grant from the National Commission of Culture of the Argentine Republic, he lived in Italy for several years, where he deepened his knowledge of classical Renaissance sculpture. During his life he was, like many Italian Renaissance masters, a multifaceted artist who served not only as a sculptor but also as a painter, writer, poet, and university teacher. He died in Buenos Aires in 1983.
His sculptural style, of almost purist classical invoice, aims to materialize the beauty of Creation. The monumentality of his works gives the observer a sense of strength and greatness. His compositions are distinguished by the presence of ethical and religious elements that fill the works with his meanings.
His work "Harmony" represents a family where the father surrounds his wife and his son through a protective embrace. This almost monumental work marks a break with purely classical sculpture as it has strong foreshortenings that reinforce the meaning of the composition.

Nicolás García Uriburu was born in 1937 in Buenos Aires, where he also died in 2016. Architect, visual artist and pioneer of Land Art. In 1998, he obtained the Grand Prize for National Painting; his international prizes included the Prix Lefranc (Paris, 1968); the First Prize of the Tokyo Biennial (Tokyo, 1975); and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Buenos Aires, 2000).
Since 1968, when he performed the Coloring of the Grand Canal in Venice during the Biennale, he tried to give, through his large-scale interventions in Nature, an alarm signal against the pollution of rivers and seas.
With his art, carrying a certain political significance (inter alia, Union of Latin America for the rivers, No to political borders), he exposed the antagonisms between nature and civilization, and between man and civilization.
In parallel to his artistic career, he conducted important social work. In Buenos Aires, he presided over the Foundation which today bears his name, dedicated to the study of the art of the original peoples of America.
In the oil "Ombú y Pampa", he made use of the characteristic green that defined him as a fundamental artist of the Land Art.

Antonio Berni was born in Rosario, Santa Fe province, in 1905. In 1925, he traveled to Europe to continue his studies with a scholarship granted by his city's Jockey Club. After visiting Spain, in 1926 he moved to Paris, where he frequented the workshops of André Lhote and Othon Friesz. In 1930, he returned to Argentina and settled with his French wife and his daughter in the city of Rosario. Faced with the economic crisis and the political and social problems that the country and the world had been going through from 1930 onwards, Berni's production turned towards a critical realism.
In 1943, he obtained the Grand Prize of Honor at the National Salon; in the following year, along with Spilimbergo, Castagnino, Urruchúa and Colmeiro, he created the first Mural Painting Workshop. In 1962, Berni won the International Grand Prix for Engraving at the Venice Biennale. Throughout that decade, he produced engravings, xylo-collages-reliefs and assemblages with waste materials. In the 1970s, he began to apply means taken from hyperrealism. In 1981 he decorated the chapel of San Luis de Gonzaga with the paintings The Apocalypse and The Crucifixion. Antonio Berni died in Buenos Aires in 1981, at the age of 76.
He is considered one of the most important Argentine artists of the 20th century. He is always attentive to contemporary trends, but without losing the strength of his art rooted in social and political reality.
This engraving held by the Beato Angelico Museum is representative of his work, giving an account of his social commitment and his sensitivity to the realities that he always reflected in his art.

Vicente Forte was born in the city of Lanús (Province of Buenos Aires) in 1912, to a family originally from Naples.
He studied in Buenos Aires, first at the National School of Fine Arts, from where he graduated as Professor of Painting and then, under the direction of teachers Emilio Pettoruti and Eneas Spilimbergo, he deepened his artistic knowledge of composition and engraving. From 1949 to 1950, he lived in Italy where he developed his own pictorial style and experienced the changes produced by the Italian artistic avant-gardes of the 1st half of the 20th century. In that period, he met and got close to the famous Italian masters Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini. He died in Buenos Aires in 1980.
In 1962 he was honored with the most important artistic distinction of the Argentine Republic, the Grand Prize of Honor of the National Salon. In 1964 he participated in the 23rd edition of the Venice Biennale.
The work "Floral" that we share represents a set of flowers exhibiting a sample of harmony in its composition, where extremes coexist and the observer can follow the rhythmic play of colors and shapes.

César López Osornio was born in 1930 in La Plata, Buenos Aires province. In 1958, he graduated from the School of Fine Arts of the National University of La Plata. In 1960 he travels to Japan on a scholarship from the UNLP and the Scientific Research Commission of the Province of Buenos Aires, living in that country for three years. There, he studies Oriental Art at the Department of Art at Osaka University of Technology and Landscape Architecture at Kyodai University in Kyoto. He teaches in both institutions in Visual Perception and Mural and holds several exhibitions.
He was Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of La Plata and at the Faculty of Architecture of the Catholic University of La Plata.
Forced to leave the country in 1975; the exile led him to seek horizons in Latin America: In Venezuela, at the time of the First Meeting of Ibero-American Visual Artists and Critics held in 1978, he made the first contacts with artists from all over America in order to establish an exclusively Latin American contemporary art museum.
In 1980 he moved with his family to Barcelona, ​​in 1992 he organized the First Exhibition of Latin American Artists residing in Europe. The interest and success aroused by the exhibition makes him return to the idea born in Caracas and all the participating artists adhere to the project that López Osornio proposes and decide to integrate the heritage of the museum to be created with their works.
In 1999, he returned to Argentina and founded the MACLA Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano, being able to give it a place in the Pasaje Dardo Rocha in the city of La Plata, where he had been expressly invited by the mayor of said city.
In 2009, he was incorporated as a Delegate Academic by the Province of Buenos Aires to the National Academy of Fine Arts of the Argentine Republic.
He obtained the Title of Illustrious Citizen of the City of La Plata in 2003, the 2008 Linden Leaf Award for Citizen Merit, the Diploma of Honor from ADIMRA.
In 2012 he is named Guest of Honor, a permanent distinction by the municipality of Luján in relation to his important contribution to the development of the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts in that city.
He also continued with his artistic work, counting among his last exhibitions a retrospective at the Eduardo Sívori Visual Arts Museum in 2013.
"Laurita discovers the city" is an abstract work that begins the series that Cesar López Osornio will later develop.

Graciela Marx studied at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, graduating in 1967 with the title of teacher and a graduate in sculpture. Since 1975 she has been a member of the international circuits of ARTECORREO, a creative communication at a distance, extended via fax and internet, which today is found on the tracks as ETERNAL NETWORK- among other acronyms. She has participated on and off the circuit in more than 400 national and international shows, practicing her collective projects of convivial aesthetics, coined in experiences of co-creation.
Edgardo Antonio Vigo - (La Plata, 1928 - La Plata, 1997) studied at the Superior School of Fine Arts of the National University of La Plata and graduated as Professor of Drawing in 1953.
He was an artist who worked on visual poetry, concept art, magazine editions, objects, actions, woodcuts. He is considered a pioneer in the artistic avant-gardes of Argentina and Latin America. He understood the world as an organic whole in which there was no separation between knowledge, artistic practice and life. He believed in the potential of art to mobilize society and, therefore, drew attention to specific themes and objects, from the Vietnam War and the Trelew Massacre to a traffic light or a lemon tree.
Graciela Gutiérrez Marx and Edgardo Vigo, between 1977 and 1983, jointly formed ‘G.E Marx Vigo’ and as such, they participated in multiple Mail Art projects.
The term Mail Art was initially applied to an artistic trend consisting of sending messages and productions -poems, drawings, objects, photographs- using the postal system as a means of communication to known or unknown recipients. The intention behind the trend is to oppose the rules to which the other disciplines of the visual arts conform, creating a questioning of the institutional circuits of galleries and museums, i.e. the art market practices.

Oscar Ducis Roth was born in Dolores in 1934 and died in La Plata in 2001 (both cities in the Buenos Aires province). When he was five years old, his family settled in La Plata. He studied at the then Superior School of Fine Arts of the National University of his adopted city. As a visual artist, he made numerous group and individual exhibitions in Argentina and Italy. He attended congresses and conferences, received important distinctions such as the International Parliament of Safety and Peace. He was Director of the Beato Angelico Museum of the Catholic University of La Plata, member of the International Council of Museums, the Word Des Arts Registry of New York, the Commission for the Preservation of Cultural Property and Church Art in La Plata and a jury of art. In addition to being a lawyer, he passionately devoted himself to painting and produced more than 120 important works. His visual expression can be classified as informalist and geometric abstraction.
In this work, we can see a representation of the Catholic Symbol that refers us to Jesus, in a clear play of lines and color.

Raul Soldi was born in Buenos Aires in 1905 and died in the same city in 1994. He began his artistic studies at the Academy of Fine Arts; after moving to Italy with his parents, he continued at the Brera Academy in Milan. He was the set director of the Argentina Sono Film company, collaborating on around 80 films. He made set designs and designed costumes for the Teatro Colón. He decorated the dome of the Santa Fe Gallery (1953); for 23 summers, he painted a fresco mural in the Santa Ana de Glew Chapel in the Buenos Aires province. In 1966, he began the works that adorn the dome of the Teatro Colón and in 1968 he painted a fresco in the Chapel of the Annunciation of Nazareth in Israel. Later, he created ceramic murals for the churches of San Isidro Labrador, Nuestra Señora de Luján del Buen Viaje, and Santa Florentina. The College of Notaries of Buenos Aires has a mural painted on the theme of Molière's "The Wise Women". He held multiple exhibitions in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Santa Fe, La Plata, Tucumán and Rosario. He also exhibited his works in Mexico, Paraguay, France, and Romania. He illustrated books by Carlos Alberto Débole, Pablo Neruda, Rafael Squirru, and Syria Poletti.
He won awards in Italy, the United States, France, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.
This mural represents the famous "Miracle of Virgin Mary of Luján". When an image of Virgin Mary was being transported, the carriage stopped and would not advance despite the efforts of the transporters. Noting this fact, the idea of ​​transferring the image was abandoned and at the point where the Virgin stopped, what is now known as the Basilica of Luján was built.

Lucio Fontana was born in Rosario (Santa Fe province) 1899. He spend the early years of his life in Italy, studying in Milan, where he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. He lived and worked throughout his life between Italy and Argentina absorbing influences from both countries. He died in Comabbio in 1968.
During his stay in Italy in the 1930s, he broke with the academic tradition and joined the Milanese abstract movement, allowing itself to be influenced by futurism. Having returned to Argentina, in 1939, he abandoned abstraction and dedicated himself to figurative sculpture of expressionist tendency. In 1947, when he returned to Milan he founded the “movimento spazialista", a new artistic movement which left its mark on contemporary art. That artistic current, promoted by Lucio Fontana and based on total freedom of expression and use in the field of visual arts of scientific and technological achievements, had a great influence not only in Italy, but all over the world.
His works are in the collections of more than one hundred museums throughout the world.
The Consulate General of Italy in Buenos Aires, along with the Pirelli company, established in 2011 the "Lucio Fontana Award", an annual scholarship program for young artists of Italian origin. The Prize winners are offered a two-month stay in Italy and a possibility of developing their creative abilities in contact with the Italian cultural and artistic environment.
This work, with exquisite sensitivity and an emotional and expressive figuration, refers us to romanticism for its languid beauty. Originating from the artist's figurative age, it caused undoubted changes in the 20th century visual arts.

Walter Di Santo was born in San Nicolás de los Arroyos (Buenos Aires province) in 1970 to a family originating from the Abruzzo Region. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the National University of La Plata (UNLP) graduating in 1994 as a Licensed Professor in Visual Arts with specialisation in Painting. He deepened his artistic training in Italy, in the city of Florence, where he studied thoroughly
the great Italian masters of the Renaissance.
He currently works as a teacher of Aesthetics at the National University of La Plata (UNLP), co-directs the Beato Angélico Museum of Contemporary Art of the Catholic University of La Plata (UCALP) and chairs the Association of Directors of Museums of the Argentine Republic (ADİMRA).
His pictorial work is characterized by the use of color without marked limits, figuration and the use of gold leaf. His compositions refer to the Italian Renaissance from a contemporary point of view, where the forms are completed by the viewer's eye and the material brushstrokes follow their own unpredictable rhythms.
His works were featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, both in Argentina and abroad. In Italy, he exhibited in Florence, Milan, Livorno and Viareggio. Some of his works are found today in the collections of the Vatican Museums in Rome.
In this work, stains and brushstrokes build the composition with ease and reliability. The adaptability of watercolor seems to have given life to one of the most emblematic sculptures of the city of La Plata.

Enrique Arrigoni Ensenada, 1936 - La Plata 2017
He began painting in 1950, attending the studio of the painter Juan A. Basan in the neighborhood of La Boca between 1954-56. In 1956, he entered the School of Fine Arts of the National University of La Plata, studying mural painting under the supervision of the teachers De Santo, Deferrari, Aschero, Aragón and Cartier. As of 1955 he participated in different competitions in the country.
Between 1960-1970 he joined, as a founding member, the "Dialogue" Art Group; Between 1970-1980 he worked as an ornamentist, muralist, illustrator and diagrammer at the headquarters of the Yacimiento Petroliferos Fiscales, also holding the presidency of the Association of Visual Artists of the Bs. As. Province between 1970-1976.
From 1975 to 1976 he was an honorary member of the Visual Advisory Commission of the Municipality of La Plata.
On numerous occasions he has been a member of Art juries representing the Ministry of Culture of the Province, the Directorate of Fine Arts, the Municipality of La Plata and the Association of Visual Artists of the Bs. As. Province.
He exhibited in Peru, México, Venezuela, the USA, Canada and Israel.
In this work the images and their palette strongly shape the representation of the North of Argentina.

José De Leo was born in Tres Arroyo (Buenos Aires province) in 1943 to a family originating from Calabria.
He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the National University of La Plata (UNLP), graduating as a Teacher and Bachelor of Arts, specializing in Sculpture. In this same institution, he worked as a teacher for many years. He currently lives in the city of La Plata, where he is dedicated to artistic creation at his private studio.
His sculptural work is characterized by the use of segmented spaces and breaks, which generate textures in the wood and give rhythm and harmony to the creations of him. He is known worldwide for his technique that involves the use of the electric saw to sculpt and model space, both exterior as well as interior, of his works. In the field of Argentine sculpture, he is the contemporary artist which currently has the largest number of awards distinctions nationwide.
His works and his novel technique are studied numerous contemporary Italian sculptors who usually visit Argentina and South America on the occasion of the International Sculpture Biennial of Resistencia (Chaco Province).
In this work, the compositional rhythms refer us to the bandoneon of the famous Italian-Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla. The display of tactile textures seems to make us feel his music.

Franco Petrosemolo was born in Milan in 1949. He completed his artistic studies at the Sforzesco Castle Collega and in the Artistic Lyceum of Brera specializing in sculpture and drawing. During more than a quarter of a century, he worked in Italy as a teacher and visual artist, dividing his activity between his home city and Rome where, in 1972, he was named "member emeritus" of the Accademia dei 500. In 2010, after retiring, he moved to Argentina (first to Buenos Aires and then to Santa Fé) where he runs his own studio. He gives lectures and seminars on visual arts in numerous universities in the country.
Artist of clear classical inspiration, during his career he focused on drawing, sculpture and printmaking. His domain of main artistic techniques allowed him to produce numerous works (wall paintings, sacred art, portraits, sculptures, stained glass, etchings, etc) and gain both appreciation from the public and recognitions from the most demanding critics.
His work, characterized by the purity of the compositional line, refers us to Renaissance and Italian realism.
Throughout his career, he participated with his works in more than 150 exhibitions in Italy, Argentina and different countries of the world.
In this work, executed in sanguine on paper, the artist shows us his sublime figurative technique. Saint Paul's face shines, evidencing the divine illumination that his manuscript inspires, while the gestures of the lines and the open forms of the composition refer the observer to Renaissance humanism reinterpreted from a contemporary perspective.

Primaldo Mónaco was born in Isernia (Italy) in 1921. When he was 4 years old, his family moved to Argentina to settle in Buenos Aires. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, from where he graduated in 1948 as a painting teacher. During his youth, he spent a year in Italy to deepen his study of the great Medieval and Renaissance Italian painters. He dedicated his whole life to teaching and artistic production. He died in Buenos Aires in 2004.
His pictorial style was strongly influenced by Medieval Italian painting. His works, most of which depict angelic faces, are characterized by stylization of the figures and by the use of soft colors. His paintings sent us to a sacred space where light and firm brushstrokes build subtle and extremely beautiful figures.
During his long artistic career, he produced numerous works and exhibited frequently in Argentina and Italy, winning awards and recognitions in both countries. In 1954 and in 1965, he was awarded the highest distinction of the Argentine Republic, the Grand Prize of Honor of the National Hall.

This work depicts a celestial, almost mystical face, with feathered blue hair. It is an exquisite figure that demonstrates the author's unique skills. The composition stands out for the purity of line and the perfection of colors.

Gustavo Boggia was born in the city of La Plata in 1958 from a family originally from Bologna. He lived between Argentina and Italy for a long time. He resided for six years in Bologna where he studied Painting and History of Art and learned, under the guidance of master Achille Facchinetti, the secrets of the oil painting technique. Currently, he lives in La Plata where he works in his own art studio.
His pictorial work refers us to the work of the famous Italian master Giorgio Morandi, whom he was able to analyze in depth during his stay in Bologna. His paintings are characterized by an almost "metaphysical" style where it is the observer who has to interpret his compositions. Simplicity and, at the same time, search for aesthetic beauty are hallmarks of his works. The presence of inert objects, the image constructed from different points of view and temporal dimensions create unreal landscapes with a seemingly possible presence of human figures.
He actively participates in shows, exhibitions and shows, both at a national and international level, obtaining prizes and distinctions.
He exhibited several times in Italy (Turin, Milan and Bologna) and maintains strong ties with the cultural and artistic area of ​​the city of Bologna that he visits regularly to exhibit and sell his works. His works can be found in numerous private collections worldwide.
This work shows an ideal space where human intervention is evident. In the middle of an empty space, a group of rigid structures marks the composition providing a sense of apparent, uncanny stability.

Carmen Bongiorno was born La Plata in 1955 to a family originally from the Sicily region. Her father, an esteemed painter and printmaker, introduced her from a very young age into the world of visual arts. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the National University of La Plata (UNLP) from where she graduated in 1981 as Graduate and Teacher of Visual Arts, specializing in ceramic. She deepened the study of ceramic techniques in Italy, through stays and connections with contemporary Italian artists. She currently lives in La Plata where she runs her own art studio.
Her ceramic work is characterized by "colored pastes" and combination of spaces with alternative natural elements (wood, cotton threads, pigments) which expand the aesthetic possibilities of her creations. Her works are an example of how the ancient art of ceramics can coexist with contemporaneity in which new technologies, such as photoceramic, blend to give life to unique compositions.
She actively participates in salons, exhibitions and both national and international shows, obtaining prizes and distinctions. In 2004, she was distinguished with the Second Prize of the National Visual Arts Salon of the Argentine Republic. She exposed on several occasions in Italy, a private collection of Laveno (Milan) holds her numerous works.

This work is an articulated composition where the perfection of spherical shapes plays with the harmonic rhythms of color, creating a perfect amalgam.

Raúl Mazzoni was born in La Plata in 1941 to a family originating from Ancona. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts Arts of the National University of La Plata (UNIP) where he graduated with specialisation in painting. Living in Italy, in Florence, he deepened the study of composition and color, establishing a connection with the Milanese avant-garde and Lucio Fontana's "spatialist" movement.
After many years of teaching art at the National University of La Plata (UNLP), he currently lives in La Plata where he runs a studio.
During his artistic career he adopts first an early-20th-century trend called "Geometric abstraction", based on the use of simple geometric shapes combined in subjective compositions over unreal spaces. His paintings were defined as "bi-spatial" because they represent a contradictory encounter between the illusion created by the painting and the reality that appears through cuts and perforations of fabrics.
He is a very acknowledged artist both in Argentina as abroad. In 1995, he was awarded a very important artistic distinction of the Republic of Argentina: the Grand Prize of Honor of the National Salon. He constantly participates with his works in shows and exhibitions worldwide. He exhibited on different occasions in Italy (in Florence, Rome, Milan, San Remo, etc.) where many private collectors own his works.
In this composition, through an audacious play of planes of different blues, the artist generates unthinkable tensions and movements. The intervention of balances provides the observer with new insights.

Jorge Rama, graduated from the Pan American Academy of Art as Professor of Drawing and Painting, had as teachers Alberto Breccia, Pablo Pereyra, Angel Borisoff and Carlos Garaycochea among others. Later at the IDA Institute he studied Art Direction in Advertising.

He has exhibited professionally since 1978, attending National, Provincial and Municipal shows throughout the country and abroad

He recently exhibited at the Beato Angélico Museum of Contemporary Art in La Plata. Panoramic Exhibition 2006/2016 at the Osde de La Plata Foundation in 2015, Exhibition at the Cassará Building, CABA, Areatec Foundation in 2016. Solo exhibition Victor Roverano Municipal Museum of Fine Arts in Quilmes.
The following museums have his works in their collections: Museo Contemporáneo Beato Angélico, La Plata. MUMART, La Plata, Peña de Bellas Artes Museum, Province of Bs.As. Municipal Museum of Alte. Brown, GBA. La Plata Cathedral Foundation Museum. Museum of the Penitentiary Service of the Bs. As. Province, MACLA Latin American Art Museum, La Plata Museum of Natural Sciences, Museo del Ladrillo, Ctibor Foundation, Casa Gris Museum of La Plata, Emilio Petorutti Provincial Museum of Fine Arts, Victor Roverano Municipal Museum of Fine Arts in Quilmes, and the Museo del Sacro Cuore Catholic University of Milan, Italy.
In this composition, a geometric arrangement is proposed in the space in which a chess piece is added allowing the viewer to establish another balance under way, allowing attention to both the depth reached and the stillness of the object.