Romulo Macció
Encyclopedia
Life and work
Born in Buenos AiresBuenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Romulo Macció developed an early interest in drawing, was self-taught and was hired as a graphic designer at the age of fourteen. Soon earning some renown, he mounted his first exhibition in Buenos Aires' Galeria Gatea in 1956. Macció's visually unabashed abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
brought him to the attention of, among others, architect Clorindo Testa
Clorindo Testa
Clorindo Manuel José Testa is an Italian-Argentine architect and artist. He graduated from the School of Architecture at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1948....
and he joined the Boa Group, one of a number of intellectual circles influencing local cultural life in those days. Awarded the prestigious De Ridder Prize in 1959 and the Torcuato di Tella Institute
Torcuato di Tella Institute
The Torcuato di Tella Institute is a non-profit foundation organized for the promotion of Argentine culture.-Overview:The di Tella Foundation and its institute were created on July 22, 1958, the tenth anniversary of the death of industrialist and arts patron Torcuato di Tella...
International Prize in 1962, his fame brought him close to other Argentine avant-garde artists, such as Luis Felipe Noé
Luis Felipe Noé
Luis Felipe Noé is an artist, writer, intellectual and teacher from Buenos Aires, Argentina where he is known as Yuyo. In 1961 he formed Otra Figuración with three other Argentine artists. Their eponymous exhibition and subsequent work greatly influenced the Neofiguration movement...
. He and Noé soon helped pioneer the Neo-figurative
Neo-figurative
Neo-figurative art describes an expressionist revival in modern form of figurative art. The term neo and figurative emerged in the 1960s in Mexico and Spain to represent a new form of figurative art.-Neo-figurative artists:...
movement that swept Latin American art
Latin American art
Latin American art is the combined artistic expressions of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, as well as Latin American living in other regions....
during the 1960s. A self-declared rebel against aesthetics in art, Macció described much of the genteel portrait and landscape art available at that time as "pink chocolate." Macció's tortured figures were often the dead or dying and were set against backdrops that suggested urban pollution and decay. Recently, his work has tended to center around social problems.
Macció continues to display his work in Argentine and European galleries and has had eight retrospective art books published since 1969. A number of his works are in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires)
The National Museum of Fine Arts is an Argentine art museum in Buenos Aires, located in the Recoleta section of the city. The MNBA inaugurated a branch in Neuquén in 2004.-History:...
in Buenos Aires, the Blanton Museum of Art
Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is the art museum and research center of the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly under the College of Fine Arts, the museum director now reports to the University's...
and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the...
.