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Pintura [Painting]

Primary (Villa Federal, Entre Ríos, Argentina, 1928–Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1996)
NationalityArgentinean, South America
Date1971
MediumOil on canvas, mounted on board
DimensionsSight: 39 1/8 × 29 1/4 in. (99.4 × 74.3 cm)
Framed: 42 1/2 × 32 5/8 in. (108 × 82.9 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Barbara Duncan, 2003.4
Collection AreaLatin American Art
Object number2003.4
On View
Not on view
Label Text
While never at the center of the mainstream of Argentine art, Roberto Aizenberg was still influential and respected in that world. Despite a flourishing experimental literary scene, Buenos Aires never produced a fully fledged Surrealist movement in the visual arts, making Aizenberg perhaps the closest thing to an Argentine Surrealist. He developed a unique painting technique, applying wet-on-wet oils onto canvas that he mounted on hard board. The result was a series of paintings that glow with a characteristic interior light, recalling Renaissance panels in their clearly defined detail and luminosity. Aizenberg’s subjects were often strange cityscapes punctuated with towers, and Pintura is a radiant example from that body of work. The light emerging from behind the towers here has an ominous quality, suggesting either a smog-filled urban sunset or perhaps a more otherworldly presence.