Word: quinquela
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Last week Buenos Aires' usually subdued Witcomb Gallery was abustle with crowds who came to see Quinquela's new show, his first in ten years. On opening day alone, 10,000 people came. The 60 oils looked very much like all his others. Quinquela used to hustle coal on the docks when he was a youngster, and his technique shows it: he heaves the paint onto the canvas, using a trowel (slightly trimmed in size) instead of a brush...
...usual, the critics-panned him, but that did not worry Quinquela, who has sold all the pictures he ever painted. In the first eleven days of the show, 15 pictures were sold at about $1,500 apiece. All of them were bold scenes from La Boca, Buenos Aires' wretched port district where Quinquela grew up and still lives. On the canvases, he has transformed its rusty tramp steamers into gay red and green fleets, its waterfront toughs into noble-looking heroes...
...canvas, too, Quinquela has always tried to transform La Boca, along with the rest of his city. A foundling raised by a dockworker, Quinquela started to draw with charcoal before he could read or write, sold his first paintings for five pesos each. Eventually, he earned enough money to buy a half-acre plot, donated it to the government on condition that it build a school there. He filled the school with gay murals, painted doors, benches and tables in gaudy circus colors, even did the blackboards in pink and blue...
...tired of La Boca's all-pervading drabness, hired a crew of house painters to brighten the Boquenses' homes. Quinquela and his men started to paint the town red-and also blue, green, yellow and orange. When La Boca merrily proclaimed itself an independent republic some years ago, Quinquela took the title of its "Rearest Admiral." He still occasionally wears a blue admiral's uniform with gold screws for buttons, signifying his allegiance to the Order of the Screw which he founded (current membership: 150). Explains Quinquela: "I long ago discovered that anyone worth a damn, anyone...
...years, Quinquela tried to persuade the city government to let him repaint Buenos Aires' aluminum-drab trolleys and buses. Finally the city let him do one bus in pink, red, green and blue. He has been less successful in his campaign against black coffins, especially for artists, despite a telling argument: "Why should we who owe our very bread to color go to our graves in black boxes?" In his will. Colorist Quinquela has ordered that his own coffin be soft pink inside, with blue top, vermilion ends and green sides...