Jorge Romero Brest (1905-1989) was a professor, critic, and promoter of the visual arts in Argentina. During the regime of Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974) he was relieved of his academic duties and became the director of Ver y estimar [To See and Ponder] magazine. Later on, the de facto government that overthrew Perón on September 16, 1955, which called itself the Revolución Libertadora, named Romero Brest the administrator of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes [The National Museum of Fine Arts] of Buenos Aires. In 1956 he became the director of the Museum, a post he held until 1963. During the 1960s, he directed the Centro de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato Di Tella [Torcuato Di Tella Institute’s Center for Visual Arts]. The Ver y estimar [To See and Ponder] editorial project was undertaken with the support of his students as an offshoot of the art history classes that Brest taught after being removed from his position as professor during the Peronist regime.
The New Art of Argentina exhibition was organized by the Walker Art Institute (Minneapolis, MN) in a joint effort with the Visual Arts Center of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, directed by Jorge Romero-Brest. Aside from being presented in these two institutions, it was also exhibited in the Akron Art Institute (October 25–November 29, 1964), in the Atlanta Art Association (December 13, 1964–January 17, 1965), and in the Archer M. Huntington Art Museum, at the University of Texas, Austin (February 7–March 14, of the same year). The participating artists were: Hugo R. Demarco, Julio Le Parc, Luis Tomasello, Carlos Silva, Eduardo A. Mac-Entyre, Víctor Magariños D., Miguel Ángel Vidal, Sarah Grilo, José Antonio Fernández-Muro, Miguel Ocampo, Kazuya Sakai, Clorindo Testa, Mario Pucciarelli, Osvaldo Borda, Víctor Chab, Martha Peluffo, Rogelio Polesello, Ernesto Deira, Rómulo Macció, Jorge de la Vega, Luis Felipe Noé, Antonio Seguí, Delia Sara Cancela, Carlos Squirru, Delia Puzzovio, Marta Minujín, Antonio Berni, Rubén Santantonín, Libero Badíi, Noemí Gerstein, Ennio Iommi, Gyula Kosice, Alicia Penalba, and Marino Di Teana. The proposed itinerary for this exhibition fulfills one of the main objectives of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella: the internationalization of Argentinean art and the incorporation of the national aesthetic into the evolution of the international avant-garde.
