Yente / Del Prete, mystical couple

There is a constant and central thread within the work of Yente (Eugenia Crenovich, Buenos Aires, 1905-1990) and Juan Del Prete (Vasto, 1897 - Buenos Aires, 1987) that helps us understand their entire output, yet it has been little considered or exhibited. This is the spiritual or mystical thread of this pair, pioneers of abstract art in Argentina.

For this reason, the exhibition Mystical Figuration: Yente-Del Prete , featuring 60 works in two rooms on the ground floor of the Tigre Art Museum (MAT), is a significant event. Curators Santiago Villanueva and Roberto Amigo write clearly: “The works of Juan Del Prete and Yente have been revisited recently to establish their position within the artistic avant-garde and their impact on contemporary artists. However, this recovery has been primarily based on abstract, non-figurative, and informalist work. This exhibition proposes a reflection on the religious and mystical figurative painting—which even veers into abstraction—produced individually by both artists between 1947 and 1985.”

The proposal successfully places each individual's works separately in different rooms , allowing for a quick appreciation of their themes and stylistic characteristics. The curators' research focused on the influence that the Italian Giuseppe Lanza del Vasto 's thought, with his preaching of the philosophy of nonviolence influenced by Mahatma Gandhi , had first on Yente, who had a philosophical background , and through her on Del Prete. Yente's library included his books Principles and Precepts of the Return to Evidence and Vinoba or The New Pilgrimage (both published in Buenos Aires by Sur), displayed in a display case at the beginning of the exhibition. Lanza del Vasto was in Argentina in August 1957 at the invitation of Victoria Ocampo .

Born to a Catholic family, he and the Jewish family, Villanueva expressed, in conversation with Ñ , that both are about “the development of a spirituality more than a belief.” Del Prete’s paintings are dominated by informalism with textures of pasty brushstrokes and a figuration that tends toward geometricization. And there is a lot of color. The representation of Jesus prevails from scenes from the New Testament . There are several portraits among paintings of the Road to Calvary , crucifixions, and an imposing and moving Christ Carried to the Tomb (1961), almost all in oils. In works from 1982, the Archangel Saint Michael appears, considered the leader of God’s armies who fight against evil.

The striking Last Supper (1976), with its extensive iconographic history in Western art, recalls that of the early Italian Renaissance artist Giotto da Bondone due to the circular composition of figures around a table. I mentioned this to Liliana Crenovich , Yente's niece, who told me: "He saw Giotto in a book he received when he was in La Boca in the 1920s," and it made a mark on him. She also specified that Yente pointed out the absence of this significant scene from the life of Jesus in his work.

This reflects the ongoing artistic and intellectual exchanges between them, as highlighted three years ago by the exhibition Yente-Del Prete. Vida venturosa (A Venturous Life) at Malba (only two works from the current exhibition were in the other). He was an Italian immigrant who arrived in La Boca and trained among the painters of the famous neighborhood, while she was from Buenos Aires, a graduate in philosophy, and belonged to a wealthy family of Russian origin.

In 1935, they met at a Del Prete exhibition at Amigos del Arte . He was already a modern artist, having made his first collages and abstract oil paintings in Paris, and was entering the history of Argentine art as the first to exhibit non-figurative works . The meeting motivated Yente to decide to destroy her previous work and embark on the path of abstraction. She was the first female artist to enter this movement, beginning in 1937. But it is important to highlight the constant back-and-forth between abstraction and figuration in both of them, so fruitful throughout their careers and unique for their time.

While both artists' work is characterized by experimentation, Yente's work is being analyzed and revalued by younger generations. Even, as art historian María Amalia García has argued, we are once again looking at Del Prete through Yente's eyes.

Burnt matches —those left behind by her husband when he lit his pipe—are frequently found in the artist's works, as seen in her works on cathedrals, with which she secured the architectural structure of pointed arches. Thread is another element used to delineate and give volume to the figures ( Exit from Eden , 1966). In Mystical Composition (1982), the trilogy of geometrically synthesized and embossed silhouettes are made of Styrofoam. She created the fantastical Last Judgment: Heaven of the Blessed (1964) using metallic paper from labels and candy wrappers.

The figure of Saint Francis of Assisi takes on special importance. “His life was always very simple, modest, and dedicated to art, which is why the figures of Gandhi (a painting and collage from 1976) and Saint Francis (praying, with birds, receiving the stigmata, from the late 1950s) appear in his works,” noted Liliana Crenovich . There is also The Conclave: Homage to John XXIII (1963, a collage of watercolor, fiber, matches, and metallic paper), known as “the Good Pope.” And there are works linked to the Book of Exodus, present in both the Jewish and Christian canons, and to Book I of the Maccabees.

With emotion, the artist's niece concluded: "At this time when people are killing each other, seeing that through art we can coexist, there is light, awareness." Another great legacy from this pair of artists whose works continue to endure and speak to us.

The exhibition features two works by Del Prete that are part of the MAT's heritage. These are the oil paintings Maternity (1959) and Christ incarnate (1963). This is the institution in the country with the most works by the artist, a total of 13. Graciela Arbolave , the museum's current director, explained the collection to Ñ : the first work, Riachuelo (1920), was acquired at public auction in 2005 by the then mayor Ricardo Ubieto, founder of the MAT; nine were added in 2019 through a donation from Isabel Capelli, including still lifes, figures, and collages using different techniques; two oil paintings were bequeathed by Carlos Franck in 2020, and the last Del Prete painting, a small early period painting, was recently added thanks to a donation during the lifetime of Dr. Guillermo Jaim Etcheverry .

The 238 works donated (paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures) by the doctor, scientist and former rector of the University of Buenos Aires are on display until March 29 of next year and have not only increased but also complemented the museum's collection. Works by Emilio Pettoruti , Roberto Aizenberg, Juan Carlos Castagnino, Enio Iommi, Noemí Gerstein , Carlos Alonso , Josefina Robirosa, Pablo Suárez , Alicia Penalba, Alfredo Londaibere and many more are now part of the collection of figurative Argentine art from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries, with an extension into contemporary times, of this young and energetic museum that will celebrate its twentieth anniversary next year.