Juan Del Prete was an Italian-born, self-taught painter, draughtsman, and sculptor who migrated to Argentina in 1909. Abstracción con material (1934) is one of Del Prete’s first after his stay in Paris that reflected the early resonances of the non-figurative experimentation into which he ventured during his trip. It was included in two consecutive exhibitions at the Asociación Amigos del Arte in 1933 and 1934, along with many other paintings, collages, and sculptures. In particular, this piece embraced an abstract vocabulary that mixed dense fillings of pigments with discarded materials such as coloured papers, strings, scraps of fabric, wires, and metal objects. This piece documents a key moment in Del Prete’s art practice in which he decided to abandon any kind of link with reality and social meaning to privilege an imperfect abstraction centred on the treatment of shapes and the use of unusual colours – especially pink.
—Nicolas Cuello
