During the 1920s, the modernization of art in Argentina was in one of its principal stages. Subsequently, towards the end of the decade there emerged those artists linked to the Martín Fierro journal—Emilio Pettoruti (1892–1971), Xul Solar (1887–1963), and Norah Borges (1901–1998)—along with other artistic expressions: the actions by Alfredo Guttero (1882-1932) and the Artistas del Pueblo [Artists of the People] with their sociopolitical etchings. Most noticeable was the local activity by artists trained in Paris: Aquiles Badi (1894–1976), Horacio Butler (1897–1983), Héctor Basaldúa (1895–1976), Raquel Forner (1902–1988), Alfredo Bigati (1898–1964), Antonio Berni (1905–1981), and Lino Enea Spilimbergo (1896–1964). During this modernization process, a confrontation took place against “traditional” artists, those who practiced a post-impressionist naturalism.
This document shows the relationships established between the visual arts vanguards of the early 1920s, and those from the end of that same decade, a period prior to the intense political polarization of the early 1930s. Given the year, it was dated in 1928, this letter demonstrates how the group of Argentinean artists, who had been studying in Paris, attempted to establish institutional networks, prior to their return, to legitimize joven pintura [young painting]. In spite of that fact, they never stopped sending regularly their artwork to the Salón Nacional [National Salon], established in 1911. In 1928, the Argentinean Modern painting exhibition, which took place at the Asociación Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art Association], gathered together with works by Badi, Basaldúa, Berni, Butler, Del Prete, and Spilimbergo. Between 1929 and 1931, Guttero—artist, deceased in 1932—organized the exhibition of Modern painters, Salón de Pintores Modernos, also known as the Nuevo Salón. It took place at the aforementioned Asociación Amigos del Arte, in which artists from both the Paris Group and those vanguardists of the early 1920s participated.