Lino Enea Spilimbergo

Lino Enea Spilimbergo
Lino Enea Spilimbergo
Born	Lino Claro Honorio Enea Spilimbergo 12 August 1896 Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died	16 March 1964 Unquillo, Argentina
Nationality	Argentine
Education	Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes
Known for	Artist and engraver
Website	http://www.fundacionspilimbergo.org/FRAMES1.HTML

Lino Enea Spilimbergo (born Lino Claro Honorio Enea Spilimbergo) (12 August 1896 – 16 March 1964) was an Argentine artist and engraver, and he is considered to be one of the country's most important painters.

Lino Enea Spilimbergo was born in Buenos Aires in 1896, the son of Italian immigrants, Antonio Enea Spilimbergo and María Giacoboni, and his full name was Lino Claro Honorio Enea Spilimbergo. His early years were spent in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo. Whilst visiting his mother's relatives in northern Italy with his family he contracted pneumonia, which in later years caused him to suffer from asthma. Returning to Buenos Aires in 1902 he started his schooling, which ended in 1910, when he began working for the post office to support himself. From then on, until 1924, he kept this job in parallel with his painting. In 1917, he graduated from the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes and in September of that year his father died.

At the age of 22, he began writing his autobiography, and in 1920 he wrote a booklet about his thoughts, in order to arrange and organize his life and work. In 1921 the Salón Nacional de Bellas Artes accepted, for the first time, one of his pieces and later that year, following the recommendation of his doctor to live in a place with a drier climate, his employer agreed to relocate him to Desamparados in San Juan Province. He stayed there until he resigned his job in 1924, and it was during this period that he had his first individual exhibition.

Using prize money he had won in an art exhibition, he traveled to Europe in 1925 and visited Florence, Venice, Palermo and other Italian cities in search of classical art sources, paying particular attention to frescos. He then moved to Paris where he studied in the studio of the French painter, sculptor and writer André Lhote and came under the influence of post-cubism and the work of Paul Cézanne.

In 1928, he returned to Argentina to live in Las Lomitas, San Juan Province, and in 1929, his son Antonio was born. A year later, he moved back to Buenos Aires and in 1933, together with the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros and the Argentine artists Antonio Berni and Lozano produced the mural entitled . To explain their principles and ideas, the group produced a document under the same title. The involvement in this work was a decisive event in Spilimbergo's life and marked the start of his career as a muralist.