Juana Lumerman

Juana Lumerman (born 1905 and died 1982 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) was a visual artist.

Lumerman graduated with a degree in painting in 1935 from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. Lumerman studied there with European trained teachers including Aquiles Badi known for his Constructivist and metaphysical tendencies and Emilio Centurion known for his command of volumes and form, as well as with Carlos Ripamonte a painter of an earlier generation known for his work in an Impressionist vein.

In 1936, Lumerman won first prize in the VI Feminine Salon of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. In a 1993 essay, art historian Cesar Magrini evokes the period and describes Lumerman as "...a pioneer and an explorer of new paths. Those were years when one could count on the fingers of one hand those women who were permitted to paint, model or sculpt without its being considered a perversion."

By the early 1940's, Juana Lumerman was showing her painting in Buenos Aires with a mixed group of her accomplished peers. In 1941, The Museum of Art in Los Angeles invited several Argentine artists to represent their country in a US exhibition; the group included Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Raquel Forner, Ramon Gomez Cornet, Antonio Berni , Emilio Pettoruti and Juana Lumerman.

In 1945, Juana Lumerman spent a year exhibiting, traveling and working in Brazil. Throughout Lumerman's career, dynamic images of carnival, soccer and tango were to serve as counterpoints to more statically structured, more metaphysical, cityscape and still life themes in her painting.

In 1948, Juana Lumerman traveled to Washington, DC for another invitational show and then toured the US. In 1950, the artist traveled to northern Argentina where much of Buenos Aires' intelligentsia had decamped in an attempt to avoid the constraints of Juan Peron's visual aesthetic.

Despite her travels to Brazil and to Argentina's colorful northern provinces, Lumerman's palette tended to be cool and tonally somber. The artist typically painted easel-size works in oil on board or canvas using a loosely figurative style notable for its fluidity of line and skillful paint handling.

In a 1952 article the British fine art magazine "The Studio" names Juana Lumerman, [ [http://www.mnba.org.ar/obras_autor.php?autor=125&opcion=1 MNBA - Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes - Argentina ] ] Raquel Forner and [ [http://www.fundacionkonex.com.ar/premios/curriculum.asp?ID=825 Fundación Konex ] ] Mane Bernardo as the three key women in Argentina's visual arts scene.

Possibly by choice (?), Juana Lumerman exhibited rarely in subsequent years, with notable exceptions being a solo show at the respected Van Riel Gallery in 1967 and a prestigious 1968 Salon Estimulo show including Argentine masters and contemporary artists such as Carlos Alonso known as Castagnino, Riganelli, Policastro, Carlos Ripamonte [ [http://coleccion.educ.ar/coleccion/CD5/contenidos/bernichicos/galeria/juanito.html CD 5 - Colección educ.ar ] ] Berni and Soldi. In a 1978 newspaper interview, art critic Hugo Monzon quotes Juana Lumerman as saying: "I have always worked. I wish (now) that people might know my things, to break away from modestly, because ones work makes one naked."

Juana Lumerman painted in her studio on Paraguay Street in downtown Buenos Aires until her death in 1982.

References

*"El Arte de los Argentinos", Jose Leon Pagano. Third Volume, page 373. Edición del Autor. 1937-1940. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
*"Argentine Painting Today" article by Carmen Valdes in "The Studio". Cover photo and page 40. Vol.CXLIV No. 713. August 1952. London, UK.
*"Breve Historia de la Pintura Argentina", Maria Laura San Martin, page 129. Editorial Claridad. 1993. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
*"Homenaje a la Mujer: Muestra de Pintura de Juana Lumerman", memorial exhibition folio essay by Cesar Magrini. Salon de Pasos Perdidos, Camara de Diputados de la Nacion. 1993. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
*"Juana Lumerman: El indeclinable fervor de una artista" article by Susana Negri in "Arte & Antiguedades". Pages 54-57. No. 21, 1994. Buenos Aires, Argentina.