Paintings by Cesareo Bernaldo de Quiros, June 1-August 3, 1932

Cesareo Bernaldo de Quiros was born on May 27, 1879 in Gualeguay, Entre Rios Province, Argentina. In his youth, he often skipped classes to spend time among the area's gauchos; during one such opportunity, he witnessed a duel and, inspired by the event, created his first known painting. Due to his poor attendance at school, his father enrolled him in a Buenos Aires boarding school in 1895. There, he became acquainted with visiting Spanish painter Vicente Cotanda, who gave the young artist his first formal training. While in the capital city, he began working on the staff of “El Quijote,” an illustrated weekly journal of humor and satire, where he studied under two draftsmen, Mayol and Sojo.

In 1896, he was accepted into the Fine Arts Academy, where he was mentored by realist painters Ángel Della Valle and Ernesto de la Cárcova. He ended up completing the six year training in three years and, in 1898, entered a competition to win a full scholarship from the Entre Ríos provincial government to receive further arts education abroad. However, his father's own objection to the award resulted in its cancellation as he did not believe his son had merited such an honor.

Despite this setback, in 1899 Quiros won the Rome Prize from the Spanish Royal San Fernando Fine Arts Academy, which entitled him to a three-year apprenticeship in Rome, Italy. He later relocated to Mallorca, the largest of the scenic Balearic Islands of Spain, and lived there until 1910, making brief visits to Rome for the 1905 World's Fair, to the Venice Biennale, and to Buenos Aires, when he established the Nexus Group with Pio Collivadino and Fernando Fader in 1906. The group popularized post-impressionism among Argentina's conservative clientele. Quiros met María Antonelli during this interim, they married and eventually had two children together.

He again returned briefly to Argentina in 1910 to attend the Centennial Exposition where he exhibited 26 works and earned a Gold Medal. Increasingly well known, he purchased a villa in Settignano, Tuscany, and later, an apartment in Paris, where he regularly hosted a number of other Argentine émigrés.

The 1914 death of his estranged father, as well as the outbreak of World War I, prompted Quiros to relocate to the family home in native Gualeguay. President of Argentina Victorino de la Plaza had 72 of his works added to his National Fine Arts Commission's collection in 1915. Continued success in Chile and in Uruguay also allowed de Quirós to purchase a large atelier facing the Palermo Rose Garden in Buenos Aires. His marriage suffered, however, and a 1923 separation from his wife led de Quirós to purchase a secluded estancia in Entre Ríos Province. The historic property, which had belonged to the daughter of 1850s-era President Justo José de Urquiza, provided the setting for his series ""the gauchos,"" naturalist paintings which became his best-known works, and what were shown in this exhibition at the Legion of Honor in 1932.

In 1938, he purchased a large estate near Parana and changed his focus towards landscape art. In 1939, the National Fine Arts Museum exhibited and acquired a number of his works. The artist relocated in 1947 to an equestrian estate in the upscale Buenos Aires suburb of Vicente López, where one of his neighbors was close friend Florencio Molina Campos. He earned a Grand Prize at the Madrid Biennale in 1951. In 1960, he married Yole Lanzelotti. Thirty works from his series ""the gauchos"" were acquired by the National Fine Arts Museum in 1965, and his native province awarded him with their Legion of Merit in 1967. Two days after his 89th birthday, Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós died in his Vicente López home on May 29, 1968.

Sources:
Artist biography. Paintings by Cesareo Bernaldo de Quiros, June 1-August 3, 1932 Legion of Honor Exhibition Records, LH-ER. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Archives.
Wikipedia contributors, "Cesáreo Bernaldo de Quirós," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ces%C3%A1reo_Bernaldo_de_Quir%C3%B3s&oldid=1051184121 (accessed June 14, 2022).