During the season of 2011-2012 we offer an exhibition entitled “Figari, Sarlos and the Uruguayan Rhythm”, a presentation of Uruguayan artists under the auspices of the Uruguayan Embassy and the Harry Recanati Foundation.
We exhibit paintings by Pedro Figari and his son Juan Carlos Figari, who treated local scenes of everyday life in Montevideo and in Uruguay from a unique point of view. Pedro Figari is a painter of spots, not of lines. He paints the past based on his affective memories. In his paintings we can find collective scenes of the descendants of the black slaves, such as parties, christenings and weddings, dances brought from Africa, such as the Candombe, and traditional South American dances, such as the Pericón and the Gato, popular street bands, guitars and drums as well as rural scenes. His work portrays rural landscapes, with their huts and moonlit skies, colonial patios, gauchos, blacks and criollos, all part of Uruguayan society. It is part of a Latin American artistic process characterized by a search for local content.
Figari was a multifaceted man, operating in the judicial, political, diplomatic and educational fields. He led the creation and development of the School of Arts and Crafts.
We also exhibit paintings by Eduardo Sarlos, contemporary Uruguayan painter who represented a different part of the Uruguayan society from a different point of view. Sarlos is a painter of details who did ink drawings and paintings alluding to Jewish culture and to his Hungarian origin and with a theme that characterizes his work: old people. His mother, his aunt, his wife Marta and his own face can be perceived in the faces of some of his characters. He portrays a world of old people with subtle irony, a community that grew old at an implacable rate. Sarlos was an architect, but he was also a travel agent, the owner of a pharmacy and a prolific playwright. His plays are an integral part of the Uruguayan national repertoire.
