After briefly training in Paris (1954–56), Alberto Greco (1931–65) settled in Brazil (1957–58), where he drew closer to the informalist aesthetics that he promoted later in Buenos Aires. In 1960, he exhibited his work at the Galería Pizarro under the title Pinturas negras [Black Paintings], and, thereafter, in the Buenos Aires city center, he positioned billboards featuring his name. In 1961, he exhibited Las Monjas [The Nuns] at the Galería Pizarro [Pizarro Gallery]. In 1964, he settled in Madrid—he had been traveling throughout Europe since 1961—where he had produced works in tandem with Antonio Saura and Manolo Millares; in this manner, he continued both his informalist and conceptual experimentation, beginning in the late-1950s. During a brief return to Buenos Aires on December 9, he produced at Galería Bonino Mi Madrid querido [My Beloved Madrid], a performance piece from a genre he called Vivo-Dito [The Living-Finger], on this occasion with the participation of flamenco dancer Antonio Gades. The performance ended at the Plaza San Martín, a square in Buenos Aires downtown. Greco had previously incorporated girls in flamenco dress in his solo exhibition at Galería Juana Mordó in Madrid in the month of May. This was his last work in Argentina; he committed suicide in Madrid on October 12, 1965.
In 1961, his last year in Buenos Aires before establishing himself mainly in Paris and Madrid, he exhibited Las Monjas [The Nuns] in the Galería Pizarro with a brief epistolary text by Manuel Mujica Láinez (1910-84), with whom he had associated from his beginnings as a writer in the 1950s. Having been regulars at Juan Cristóbal Bookshop, a gathering place for literary clientele, they were both considered existentialists from the city of Buenos Aires. The basis of the exhibition was a postcard with the image of Alberto Greco posing as a baby for photographs.
The idea of the artist as wizard, set forth here by Manuel Mujica Láinez, was widespread among the artists of the early-1960s, for example, Luis Felipe Noé (1933). The letter by Manuel Mujica Laínez was addressed to Tía Ursulina [Aunt Ursulina], a mythical character created by the artist himself, who was especially fond of his aunts during his childhood.