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| Raquel Forner | |
|---|---|
| Name | Raquel Forner |
| Birth date | 1902 |
| Death date | 1988 |
| Birth place | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Nationality | Argentine |
| Known for | Painting, sculpture |
| Movement | Expressionism, Surrealism |
Raquel Forner was an Argentine painter and sculptor known for her dramatic canvases and sculptural works that engaged with themes of war, space, and human struggle. Active across the twentieth century, she exhibited widely and participated in international cultural networks linking Buenos Aires, Paris, New York, and Madrid. Her career intersected with major artistic movements and institutions, bringing her into contact with other figures and events in Latin American and European art.
Born in Buenos Aires during the presidency of Julio Argentino Roca and the cultural milieu shaped by Hipólito Yrigoyen and Leopoldo Lugones, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under teachers who referenced European models such as Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee. She later traveled to Europe and worked in Paris amid the aftermath of the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne and the milieu surrounding the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne. Her formative years connected her to networks that included figures like André Breton, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, and contemporaries from Argentina such as Xul Solar, Antonio Berni, Emilio Pettoruti, Lino Enea Spilimbergo, and Pablo Curatella Manes.
Her early career unfolded during periods marked by the Great Depression and the rise of regimes such as Getúlio Vargas' Brazil and Francisco Franco's Spain, contexts that shaped international exhibitions and cultural exchange. Forner participated in salons and biennials that included the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Art Biennial, and shows organized by institutions like the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Argentina), the Kunsthalle, and the Tate Gallery. She maintained studios in Buenos Aires and Paris, showing alongside artists from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Spain, and France. Critics compared her to Oskar Kokoschka, Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele, Francis Bacon, and Giorgio de Chirico, while curators positioned her within broader narratives that involved the European avant-garde, Latin American modernism, and debates at venues like the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the National Gallery.
Forner produced cycles and series that addressed subjects ranging from the Spanish Civil War and World War II to the Space Race and the exploration associated with Sputnik 1 and the Apollo program. Notable thematic series engaged with mythic and historical references invoking Prometheus, Icarus, Orpheus, and echoes of Homer and Dante Alighieri. Her canvases often referenced catastrophic events such as the Bombing of Guernica, the Hiroshima bombing, and the anxieties of the Cold War, placing her work in proximity to pieces by Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. She also responded to literary figures and patrons including Jorge Luis Borges, Victoria Ocampo, Ruben Darío, and César Moro.
Forner exhibited at institutions and events including the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Art Biennial, the Paris Salon, galleries in Buenos Aires, the Galerie Maeght network, and exhibitions tied to cultural centers such as the Instituto Cervantes, the American Federation of Arts, and the Smithsonian Institution. Reviews appeared in periodicals connected to the Prensa, art magazines influenced by critics like Rodolfo Puiggrós, Ricardo Rojas, and international commentators from outlets affiliated with the New York Times, Le Monde, The Times (London), La Nación (Buenos Aires), and El País (Spain). Curators from the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, and international museums organized retrospectives that traced her development alongside contemporaneous exhibitions of Frida Kahlo, Marina Abramović, Lygia Clark, and Wifredo Lam.
Her style combined elements of Expressionism, Surrealism, and figurative modernism, with affinities to Cubism and echoes of Symbolism visible in palette and composition. She used oil on canvas, tempera, and sculptural media such as bronze and plaster, employing techniques reminiscent of those used by Alberto Giacometti, Constantin Brâncuși, Henry Moore, and Umberto Boccioni. Her later work incorporated motifs associated with astronomy, rocket imagery, and the iconography of space exploration that linked her to cultural responses to NASA and scientific institutions. Surface treatment, brushwork, and modeling displayed ties to practices seen in works by Marc Chagall, Max Beckmann, and Georges Rouault.
Her legacy is preserved in collections at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Argentina), the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, and in private and public collections across Spain, France, United States, and Mexico. Scholars in Latin American art history situate her within narratives alongside Joaquín Torres García, Roberto Matta, Antonio Berni, Xul Solar, and others who shaped twentieth-century visual culture in the region. Her engagement with themes of conflict and space influenced later generations including artists represented by institutions such as the Museum of Latin American Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and university programs at Universidad de Buenos Aires, Columbia University, and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Retrospectives and academic research continue across departments of art history, programs funded by foundations like the Ford Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation, and curatorial projects that foreground her role in dialogues about modernism, war art, and cosmic imagination.