Blas Castagna Sculptures

Blas Alfredo Castagna was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1935. He studied at the Manuel Belgrano National School of Fine Arts and at the Prilidiano Pueyrredón School, where he obtained the title of National Professor of Drawing and Decorator Painter. In 1959 he traveled to Italy and in Sicily he attended the metal-beating workshop at the Scuola d´Arte di Comiso. A year later, he had a solo show of oil painting and gouaches at the “Alcora” Gallery in Buenos Aires, also presenting it in the province of San Juan. In addition to his artistic activity, he worked between 1974 and 1976 as a teacher in the Department of Plastic Arts, Faculty of Humanities, of the National University of San Juan. In 1982 he was invited to exhibit plates and monotypes at the Galerie de L´Université - Tour Mauran in Toulouse, France. A year later he exhibited in our country at the Van Riel Gallery, where a long connection with this room begins. In 1998 he exhibited again in Toulouse, at the Espace Croix Baragnon, an exhibition entitled "Origins, Mémoide", also presenting that year, at the Enrique Larreta Museum of Spanish Art in Buenos Aires, his "Obra Figurativa 1973-1993". Collectively, he presents his works in Uruguay, Cuba, Spain, at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires and at the National Museum of Fine Arts, at the Borges Cultural Center (2007 and 2008), at the Museum of Modern Art in Bahia ( Brazil, 2005), at the Sainsbury Center Norwich (United Kingdom, 2004), Centro Cultural Recoleta (1999), at the Fortabat Foundation (1985), at the II Biennial of Havana (1986) and at the ARCO fair in Madrid ( 1987). In 1990 he was awarded the Spirit of Greece Award for engraving, and in 1992 the “Konex Platinum Award. His work is influenced by the Latin American geometric constructivism present in Argentina and Uruguay as well as the European influences of Surrealism and Dada Art. He showed at the prestigious van Riel Gallery. For over 80 years the Frans van Riel Gallery has exhibited at the forefront of Argentinean art. Beginning with Alfredo Hlito “Grupo de Artistas Modernos de la Argentina” (Argentinian Modern Artists). The avant-garde of the 1950s and the work of Kenneth Kemble, Leónidas Gambartes and the Grupo Litoral, Juan Del Prete, Aldo Paparella sculpture, Julio Llinás, Aldo Pellegrini, Juan Batlle Planas, Libero Badii, Malena Babino, Horacio Butler, Alejandro Corujeira, Juan Del Prete, Kirin, Luis Felipe Noé...