Background
Emilio Pettoruti was born on October 1, 1892 in La Plata, Argentina, to a prosperous middle-class Italian family. He was one of ten children of Jose Pettoruti and Carolina Casaburi.
Emilio Pettoruti circa 1960
(The memoirs of Emilio Pettoruti "A painter before the Mir...)
The memoirs of Emilio Pettoruti "A painter before the Mirror" was published a few years before the painter´s death. Not only do we witness the vicissitudes of his struggle in order to impose his works, but we also find key aspects of his aesthetic convictions. His ties with Futurism and Cubism, his appreciation of color and light, in short a conception of art that led him to evolve towards an original abstraction, as his last paintings so well demonstrate. His essential concepts about art and life are highlighted by an existence defined by his beliefs and passions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9871136536/?tag=2022091-20
Emilio Pettoruti was born on October 1, 1892 in La Plata, Argentina, to a prosperous middle-class Italian family. He was one of ten children of Jose Pettoruti and Carolina Casaburi.
In 1908, he enrolled in La Plata Provincial Academy of Fine Arts, only to drop out shortly after because he felt he could learn more on his own. He then studied with Emilio Coutaret, an architect and teacher at the Drawing School in the Museum of Natural History, where he developed a style in favor of caricature portraits. It was one of these caricatures, specifically of Rodolfo Sarrat, that provided him with the means to study abroad. In 1913, he was awarded a travel scholarship to Italy, where he studied Renaissance painters in Florence, including Fra Angelico, Masaccio, and Giotto. There he studied at the Academia de Bella Artes, Florence, Italy.
Emilio Pettoruti did his first one-artist show at the Gonelli Gallery in Florence in 1915. He showed thirty-five works, including among others, nine drawings, fifteen paintings, and eight sketches for mosaics.
Between 1916 and 1917, Pettoruti lived in Rome where he interacted with several European avant-garde artists and discovered the growing style of futurism. He developed a strong friendship with the Peruvian writer Jose Carlos Mariategui which extended into a long-standing relationship. At that time, he earned his living by illustrating books, designing stained-glass windows and planning theatre sets.
In 1920, he exhibited a synthetic landscape at the XII Biennale Internazionale in Venice. The following year, while participating in the Prima Mostra del Paesaggio Italiano and in the Esposizione Nazionale della Citta di Roma, the work he sent to be exhibited at the Salón Nacional was paradoxically rejected. Then, during his trip to Vienna and several German cities, exhibited at Herwarth Walden's Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin in 1923 with great success.
In 1924, Pettoruti returned to Argentina, hoping to popularize the genre in his own country. In 1924, he did his first one-artist show in Buenos Aires, at the Galeria Witcomb on Florida street. The show, considered scandalous, included eighty-six works. It was not widely accepted because modernism had not yet spread in Argentina like it had in Europe.
In 1927, he was named the director of Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in La Plata. But in January 1932 Pettoruti
he was laid off his position, to which he would be restored a few months later. He showed at the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires in 1938 at an exhibition titled "Tres Expresiones de la Pintura Contemporanea". The show included works from Pettoruti, Badii, and Spilimbergo. In 1947, he decided to step down as director of the museum, which was limited to a more conservative direction during the administration of President Juan Perón. Amid ongoing harassment and dismissals of university staff, Pettoruti returned to Europe and continued to paint.
Exhibiting both in his native country and abroad, Pettoruti was a huge success. His fame spread even to North America, and in 1942, Pettoruti visited San Francisco for his first major United States show. This show expanded Pettoruti's name, causing more museums to demand his exhibitions.
Besides, he wrote his autobiography "Un Pintor Ante el Espejo" ("A Painter Before the Mirror") in Paris in 1968.
In his last years, he exhibited in Bonn, Berlin, Brussels and Geneva, among other European cities, and represented Argentina in the XI São Paulo International Biennial in Brazil in 1971.
Emilio Pettoruti died on October 16, 1971 in Paris, France.
(The memoirs of Emilio Pettoruti "A painter before the Mir...)
Quotations: "Art possesses a unique dimension, the one of infinity. That is its mystery, something marvellously indefinite and undefined which lies beyond science, our comprehension and our intellectual and physical truth. If I reach that point, my being, my strength, my faculties and my intellectual capacity will finally consider it sufficient."
During his time in Italy, he was admitted to the Famiglia Artistica as socio pittore.
Pettoruti was married to Maria Rosa González, who became a subject in many of his paintings.