How to become a professional (woman) artist in Argentina? The case of the Graduate School of Fine Arts (1930s-1940s)

GLUZMAN, GEORGINA

París

Conferencia; Faire ?uvre. La formation et la professionnalisation des artistes femmes Aux XIXe et XXe siècles; 2019

Musée d'Orsay

The Graduate School of Fine Arts (Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes) "Ernesto de la Cárcova" was a center for advanced studies in the visual arts created in 1923 in Buenos Aires, aimed for emerging professional artists. From the 1920s until the late 1940s, the School was a privileged horizon for many Argentine artists, including many women. The School?s students were selected among dozens of undergraduates of the fine arts academies nationwide and even among candidates who had been trained privately, in a very hard admission process. This proposal aims to contribute to a new reading of the Argentine art scene through the study of the careers of Argentine women artists from the 1930s to the end of the 1940s in the Graduate School of Fine Arts, often referred simply as ?La Cárcova?. Women artists in Argentina had developed several strategies to achieve some sort of integration to the Argentine artistic milieu since the late 19th century, but their entry to ?La Cárcova? seems to have been a turning point for their ambitions. In spite of the large number of active women artists trained in ?La Cárcova?, little is known about their education, their works, and their social networks. The period chosen for this proposal was for many of the most successful women artists of the Argentine scene marked by the experiences in "La Cárcova", including that of mixed-sex education. The Graduate School of Fine Arts offered them access to artistic training, time and space to work on their individual projects, and grounds for networking. However, they were virtually excluded from some workshops, such as the mural painting atelier. My aim is to revisit their experiences as women artists in a world in which the male artist dominated, that is, to offer a reading of their gendered experiences as emerging professional artists. Their careers and specific artworks will be discussed to better understand the impact of "La Cárcova" on women artists, drawing from previously unknown archival material.