Roberto Montenegro, a painter, illustrator, printmaker, and stage designer, was a founding member of the Mexican Muralism movement. Montenegro was still travelling around Europe when World War I broke out, leading him to settle in Majorca for six years. There he painted scenes inspired by local customs, including one of the island’s main activities: fishing. Pescador de Mallorca (1915) captures its bronzed and muscular subject from behind. His face is turned towards the viewer, while his right arm clutches a large platter of fresh fish. Bare, silvery branches and lush prickly pear trees stand between him and the coastal landscape in the background, with reefs that cut across the dark blue sea. A far cry from the atrocities of war, the painting’s subject, along with the decorative style and sumptuous palette used to render it, anticipate the roles that fantasy and tradition would continue to play in the artist’s later work.
This is the first time the work of Roberto Montenegro is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Marko Ilić
