Gambartes, Leónidas – Argentine

1909-1963 | Latin American Art

BIOGRAPHY OF LEÓNIDAS GAMBARTES

Leónidas Benigno Gambartes was born on 13th February 1909 in the Argentine city of Rosario, where he was to die fifty-four years later, on 2nd March 1963.

Gambartes became interested in painting for the first time in 1927 at the age of eighteen, and was self-taught. In 1933 he started work as a cartographer for the Ministry of Public Works of the Nation in the Lower Paraná River area, a job he was to do for almost thirty years. He retired just five months before his death after being granted a disability pension due to his problems with myopia which had left him almost blind.

With his profession as a cartographer as his main occupation, the young Gambartes spent his afternoons painting, but it was not something he undertook lightly. Along with Medardo Pantoja, Domingo Garrone and Juan Grela, among others, he formed the “Refuge” Group of Plastic Artists. Upon Antonio Berni’s return to Argentina in 1934, the latter made contact with this group of young artists, and together they founded the Mutual Society of Students and Plastic Artists. Berni started teaching them for free. Another notable influence at this time came from David Alfaro Siqueiros, whom Gambartes met in person when Siqueiros travelled to Rosario to give a talk titled “El artista al servicio de la revolución” (“The artist at the service of the revolution”).

Gambartes was involved in anti-fascist and anti-war militancy through the Communist Party, along with the other members of the Mutual Society. They were also linked to other groups, such as the Union of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, which shows us how networks of support and militancy formed among intellectuals.

In 1950 he founded the Grupo Litoral, marked by the theories of Torres García, together with Juan Grela, Hugo Ottman, Carlos E. Uriarte, Francisco García Carrera and Oscar Herrero Miranda, among others. This group emerged with the intention of breaking down the divide between academicism and conservatism that dominated the artistic sphere in Rosario.

As well as his problems with myopia, Gambartes also had a damaged cornea that prevented him from seeing a surface larger than 30x40cm without deformation [1]. This explains why most of his works are in small format; in cases where they were larger, Gambartes painted fragments on surfaces of that size, which were made up of a few main lines drawn on the support. It is clear, therefore, that Gambartes never saw the whole work at any time, and this also helps us understand his own particular method of composition.
From the start of his career, Gambartes took part in group and individual exhibitions. His artistic career can be divided into stages depending on the theme, language and techniques used. Also noteworthy is the creation of his own advertising agency in 1936, alongside his childhood friend Mignolo. The company was called M.G. (Mignolo and Gambartes).

 

Leónidas Gambartes’S WORK

Gambartes created his Cartones de Humorismo (“Humorous Cartoons”) series between 1937 and 1941. Between 1942 and 1945 [2], he produced a series of pen drawings with surrealist themes focused on the dream world and another of linocut engravings that the artist would never exhibit and that were not known about until after his death.

In addition to the aforementioned Antonio Berni and David Alfaro Siqueiros, important influences on his work were Joaquín Torres García and Paul Klee, as well as the influence of movements like surrealism, dadaism, metaphysical painting and German magical realism. Although Gambartes takes the essence of his ideas from all of them, transporting it to his own terrain and language, magical realism was certainly the most transcendental movement in his work. As Fantoni himself indicates, “magical realism with its taste for the metaphysical climate and motifs had guided him towards the terrain of mystery, thereby feeding his forays into the field of surrealist art” [translated from Spanish].

In 1945 he embraced a theme that would become a constant in his work: witches, sorceresses and conspirators. From thereon until 1950, Gambartes commenced a stage that Emilio Ellena was to describe as “relatively anarchic”.

Gambartes therefore returned to popular themes in 1946, although the way he painted figures and objects changed considerably. From this moment on we see compositions with a geometric base and considerable planimetry, in which the influence of Torres García’s Constructive Universalism becomes clear.

The artist made his first cromo al yeso, or “plaster chrome”, in 1949. This is a technique that he invented himself and that he would continue to use throughout his life, becoming his own trademark. It consists of creating a homogeneous and consistent layer by mixing calcium carbonate, zinc oxide and rabbit-skin glue, which the artist scrapes off after applying the pigment, providing a characteristic texture.

Following the creation of Grupo Litoral (1950), Gambartes’ work underwent a thematic and linguistic change. On one hand, we see how he focuses his production on representing telluric aspects (or in other words, relating to the earth) in a more direct way, with this being understood as depicting the land and the past of its inhabitants, creating work with regionalist roots. On the other hand, Torres García’s influence is more notable, both in his proposal to unify the universal with the regional, and in the schematic and symbolic plastic language that Gambartes was to develop.

For this reason, from 1950 to 1963, Gambartes’ work focuses on representing landscapes and people in everyday attitudes. But these are not just any places or people. Gambartes paints scenarios linked to the autochthonous, the original, the marginal, giving visibility to the daily reality of the Argentine coastal areas, and focuses on people living in the periphery or negradas, to use the derogatory name given by city-dwellers. He shows yuyeras (medicine women), washerwomen, motherhood… In essence, we see mainly female figures in attitudes of work or rest, all linked to their responsibilities on their land.

But as Gambarte was looking at the reality of a cultural identity to reflect the visible, he focused on the most hidden part, on the mythological tradition. Therefore, throughout this period he also produced a large number of works in which he used a more abstract and symbolic language to represent magical and mysterious beings such as payés (amulets of fortune, shamans that transform into animals), conjurers, mythoforms and other beings and elements that invoke the knowledge and cosmogony of ancient native cultures.
In addition to his artistic production, Gambartes wrote poems, produced illustrations, vignettes and drawings for magazines and books, and taught at the Universidad Popular Gratuita Agustín Álvarez.

 

Silvia Sánchez Ruiz
Curator

 

 

[1] “(…). A small chink in one of his eyes allowed him to see a surface no larger than 30 x 40 cm without deformation. Maybe less. The large-format works emerged by tracing the main lines in the composition and he then painted in mosaics that were perfectly juxtaposed on one another. This is documented by a photo of Leo working on his piece Bestiario. (…)” [translation from Spanish]. “Memoria”. Emilio Ellena, Santiago de Chile, March 1998. Taken from: https://gambartes.com/biografia/. In the documentary “Color Natal” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5iYFTOq01w min. 15:40) his son Hugo said his father had “fissures on his retina”, understood to refer to both eyes, since if it were just one, he would have been able to close one eye to see the whole surface without deformation.

[2] There are certain contradictions in the timelines assigned to these two series. In this case, the timeline taken from the artist’s official website has been used as a reference: https://gambartes.com/ [Date consulted: 22/0272024]. The dating of the humourism pieces between 1942-1945 is supported by Elsa Flores Ballesteros in “Introducción a la obra de Leónidas Gambartes”, in Gambartes… Op. cit., p. 125. However, in: Fantoni, Guillermo. “Caminos hacia Gambartes”, in Gambartes… Op. cit., p. 157, 167 and 169 the humourism pieces are dated between 1937 and 1942 and the dream drawings between 1941 and 1945. Different dates are provided by Jorge Taverna Irigoyen in “Gambartes o una visión de América”, in Gambartes… Op. cit., pp.142, who dates the series of dream drawings between 1942 and 1944.

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References

Gambartes [Exhibition Catalogue]. Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, 2003. Available online: https://www.forosur.com.ar/site/assets/files/1099/gambartes.pdf [Date consulted: 01/03/2024]

Wechsler, Diana; Sevlever, Rubén; Flores Ballesteros, Elsa; (et al.). Gambartes. Ediciones Castagninio/marcro, Rosario, 2013. ISBN: 978-987-26457-1-7. Available at: https://www.castagninomacro.org/archivos/editorial/23._gambartes.pdf [Date consulted: 29/02/2024]

Webography:

The artist’s official website: https://gambartes.com/

Documentary film “Gambartes, pintor del Litoral”, by Simón Feldman, 1959. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os-sjXpeHpo&feature=youtu.be [Date consulted: 29/02/2024]

Episode of Color Natal dedicated to Leónidas Gambartes. Señal Santa Fe, 2011. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5iYFTOq01w [Date consulted: 29/02/2024]

Documentary film “Gambartes, verdades esenciales”, by Miguel Mato, 2004. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMXlhWDUZs8 [Date consulted: 29/02/2024]

Programme “El cuento de la buena pipa (en pintura)”, by Norberto Moretti, 2009. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1dOzP3bytY (part 1) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Drj6_6pz48&t=3s (part 2). [Date consulted: 29/02/2024]

Lebenglik, Fabián (2003). “Circunstancias americanas”. PAGE 12. In: https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/artes/11-20921-2003-06-03.html [Date consulted: 02/03/2024]

“Leónidas Gambartes”. In: https://web.archive.org/web/20090628092709/http://www.museogurvich.org/ev_gambartes.htm [Date consulted: 29/02/2024]