Official biography and chronology · Jorge de la Vega

Jorge Luis de la Vega, a self-taught artist, was born in Buenos Aires on March 27, 1930 and died in the same city on August 26, 1971.

He was a painter, draftsman, engraver, singer-songwriter, almost an architect, university professor at UBA and Cornell University, perspectivist, comic book author, graphic designer and creative in an advertising agency.

José L. de la Vega, his father, of Catalan origin, had arrived in Argentina at the age of twenty and was an accounting official; his mother, María Margarita Lozano, was the daughter of Galicians and worked as a teacher. Jorge was the youngest of three brothers.

His first contact with painting was through his father, an amateur painter. At the age of fourteen, he attended the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts, where he practiced drawing from life models.

At the age of twenty, he held his first solo exhibition. He stood out among the so-called "new Argentine generation" of abstract painters and, from 1960 onward, was part of the local quartet of the Nueva Figuración movement. He lived for ten months in Paris (1961/62) and almost two years in New York (1965/67). From 1968, he began his career as a singer-songwriter and became part of the Nueva Canción movement.

In early 1970 he married Marta Rossi, whom he had known since 1960. On November 12, 1971, their son Ramón was born.
His works are part of public and private collections in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Posadas, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Caracas, New York, Austin and Paris.

1946 Still life, oil painting, 50 x 70 cm. First piece documented in the catalogue raisonné of the production of Jorge de la Vega, compiled between 1989 and 1990 by Mercedes Casanegra.

The painter's chosen subjects are still lifes, flowers, paintings with everyday objects (kitchen iconography), and especially portraits (working directly with models). His stylistic approach coincides with that of some painters active in the 1920s and 30s, such as Héctor Basaldúa and Roberto Rossi. He follows an expressive figuration inherited from the School of Paris, with traces of Cubism, Fauvism, and Expressionism already assimilated as academic languages.

Casanegra notes de la Vega's participation in an internal competition of sketches and drawings organized by the Sociedad Estímulo de Bellas Artes (Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts). The painter participated with his oil painting "En el circo" (In the Circus) and received an honorable mention and diploma awarded by the jury.

1947 He began participating in group exhibitions and official fine arts salons. De la Vega did not submit to the National Salon, but instead opted for a secondary circuit, participating in less prestigious competitions such as the Annual Salon of the Society of Watercolorists and Engravers, the Municipal Autumn Salon (recently created, and not to be confused with the salon of the same name created by the Argentine Society of Visual Artists in 1934), the Salon of the Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts, and some provincial or municipal salons.

According to Casanegra, he is participating in the annual competition of the Asociación Estímulo de Bellas Artes with a work entitled Study with silverside.

1948 He began his architectural studies at the University of Buenos Aires. He did not finish his degree, although he taught at the same faculty until 1965 (in the Vision II chair) and worked as a perspective artist until 1960. “It was enough for me to meet architects to understand that I didn't want to become one of them.”

He participated in the IV Municipal Autumn Salon of Visual Arts with his work Composition with Flowers, which merited a comment from the critic Romualdo Brughetti in Plástica Anuario 1948, who mentioned de la Vega among other “artists of considerable talent…” (From this year onwards, and by decision of the Municipal Intendency, this salon became biennial.)

It was accepted in the XXV Annual Salon of Santa Fe inaugurated in the Rosa Galisteo de Rodríguez Museum with his tempera Composition.

She is participating with two oil paintings, Daisies and Anemones, in the 17th Tout Petit Salon, which opened in December at the Peuser galleries. This competition is organized by the Argentine Artists Association with the “[…] purpose of making certain artistic expressions more affordable for the public […]. This is the aspect that justifies its existence, and not, strictly speaking, the aesthetic quality of its presentations.”.

1949 In October he sent a tempera painting entitled Composition with flowerpot to the XXXIV Annual Salon of the Society of Watercolorists and Engravers.

1950 She has submitted her second piece to the Autumn Salon, held at the Eduardo Sívori Museum of Fine Arts. This time it is an oil painting titled Guillermina.

1951 First solo exhibition in the galleries of the Municipal Bank of the City of Buenos Aires; it features 18 works in the style of expressive figuration. A half-length self-portrait (now lost) was reproduced in the newspaper La Nación promoting the exhibition (La Nación, 11/11/51). “When I was studying Architecture, I had the opportunity to hold my first exhibition at the Municipal Bank. It was fantastic, because it didn't cost me a penny; they provided the gallery and framed the paintings. It was a critical and commercial success. At that time, I was painting figurative works, particularly portraits and still lifes.”

1952 In April he was invited to participate in the collective exhibition “Young Values in Painting”, organized by the Plástica gallery, directed by Oscar Pécora.

In the same gallery, in September, he presents his second solo exhibition, “Jorge Luis de la Vega”, at the suggestion of Manuel Mujica Lainez, one of the most influential critics of the moment from his column in the newspaper La Nación.

His first feature article appears. The author is León Benarós, and it is published in the monthly magazine Continente. The artist elaborates on his artistic preferences and his particular interest in the human figure and his relationship with models. “I only paint when I feel like it. I use a model, whom I like to let move freely, to surprise them in their most natural expression. I believe that, in painting, the subject is merely a pretext for what one wants to say. However, I am especially drawn to portraiture, and conversely, I am not drawn to landscapes. I need to interact with the model, to know them emotionally in order to capture them more effectively. I believe that my most successful portraits are of people I have known for a longer time […].”

1953 From this year onward, alongside his figurative paintings, de la Vega began creating non-figurative works with a geometric basis, related to the international movements of rational abstraction and pop art. His new style showed connections to the work of the Grupo de Artistas Modernos (Group of Modern Artists), convened in 1952 by the critic Aldo Pellegrini, which included, among others, Tomás Maldonado, Lidy Prati, Alfredo Hlito, Enio Iommi, Claudio Girola (previous members of the Asociación de Arte Concreto-Invención, founded in 1945), and younger artists such as José Fernández-Muro and Sarah Grilo. “Little by little, I structured the image in an increasingly geometric way until, around 1953, I stripped my works of all contact with physical visual reality, seeking to find new modes of relationships in the realm of colors, textures, and forms. I practiced this discipline alongside my architectural studies until 1959.”

During the 30th Annual Santa Fe Salon, which opened on May 25, collector Luis León de los Santos donated, among other works, a painting by de la Vega to the Rosa Galisteo de Rodríguez Museum. It is the oil painting "Portrait of Ismael S. Rodrigo." This is the first work by the artist to enter the public collection.

He participated in the group exhibition “New Generation of Argentine Visual Arts,” organized by Jacques Helft in his galleries on Guido Street. Among the exhibitors were Manuel Álvarez, Gregorio Vardánega, the Madí group, Testa, Rafael Onetto, Sarah Grillo, and Fernández-Muro. The exhibition received extensive coverage. In his regular review of the artistic year, Eduardo Eiriz Maglione, writing for the influential magazine Lyra, highlighted Helft's exhibition and mentioned de la Vega: “José Luis de la Vega, carefully considering planimetric interplay, evolved toward full abstraction, a field perhaps more suited to the architect.”.

1954 Adrián Merlino publishes the first dictionary of Argentine artists of the 18th-19th-20th centuries, where de la Vega is included with a brief biographical reference and a summary of his performance since 1948.

He is included in a collective exhibition of Argentine art held at the Institute of Modern Art in New York.

In September, he participated in the group exhibition (a total of 12 invited artists) “Painting 1954,” presented at the Peuser Salon. The magazine Continente published a review by Ernesto Rodríguez commenting on de la Vega's submission. (Continente, No. 91, October 1954, pp. 27-28.)

1956 He participated alongside Domingo Bucci and Josefina Miguens – later Josefina Robirosa – in a group exhibition at the Bonino Gallery (in the 1960s, a key gallery for the New Figuration Group and for de la Vega's individual career). The artist's entry into Bonino's orbit was significant due to the gallery's position within the Buenos Aires art scene as a legitimizing and highly visible space. De la Vega exhibited eight works, including oil paintings, monotypes, and a drawing, created between 1953 and 1956. The exhibition was promoted in the "Pictorial Art" section of the newspaper La Nación on May 20 (including reproductions of two works by Bucci and Miguens).

The Peuser Salon presents the exhibition “12 Non-Figurative Painters” and de la Vega is invited to participate.

1957 In September, he was invited, along with 11 other painters, to the First Peuser Salon of Non-Figurative Painting. He exhibited 3 works. Other participants included Chab, Macció, Magariños D., and Testa.

1958 He participated in “New Generations in Argentine Painting,” an exhibition organized by Witcomb and Peuser and sponsored by the Municipal Secretariat of Culture and Social Action. He presented three non-figurative works. The selection committee consisted of critics Ernesto Rodríguez, Osvaldo Svanascini, and Rafael Squirru.

The successive invitations to de la Vega to participate in this type of exhibition demonstrate his leading role within the "new generation" and the critical recognition of his non-figurative works, of which very few documented and cataloged examples remain today.

He continued working as a perspectivist for the Rivarola and Soto studio (projects Schools, Inns, Hotel and Paradores, all competitions for the province of Misiones 1956-1957; Government House of the province of La Pampa) and for Mario Roberto Álvarez and Associates (project General San Martín Municipal Theater of the City of Buenos Aires, 1958-1959).

1959 Luis Felipe Noé opens his first solo exhibition at Witcomb and reconnects with de la Vega, whom he had met through his sister, a classmate of Jorge's. This marks the beginning of their long friendship. On this occasion, Noé introduces him to Rómulo Macció. He also meets Alberto Greco, one of the pioneers of Informalism in Argentina and a key artist of the time.

“Since that time [1959, Noé] he used his grandfather’s old hat factory as a workshop, which was located on Avenida Independencia between Bolívar and Defensa. It was an enormous house with living quarters, an office, workshops, and machines from the last century, worthy of André Breton. Greco asked to work there. Shortly after, Macció wanted to paint a large picture, needed space, and went there as well. And de la Vega visited them often.”

1960 In this year, alongside his abstract work, de la Vega began his neo-figurative pieces, in which the human figure became the central theme. He adopted from the Informalism movement the importance of materials, drips, and stains, as well as a free-spirited approach to art and the craft of painting. In this neo-figurative style, the presence of the human figure is a direct result of the painting process and the use of tools on the canvas. His contact with Noé was a defining factor in de la Vega's stylistic and conceptual shift.

He was invited to participate in the Ver y Estimar Honorary Prize, presented at the Van Riel Gallery and organized by the association of the same name. The jury included, among others, Francisco Díaz Hermelo, Enrique Nagel, Samuel Oliver, and Samuel Paz. The Ver y Estimar Association had been founded in 1953 by a group of students of Jorge Romero Brest. In 1960, Díaz Hermelo and Paz outlined the guidelines for a prize for young artists that would become a defining feature of the local art scene during its eight consecutive editions. De la Vega submitted a geometric work. Noé won the Honorary Sash with his work Saint and Dragon (the first award given to neo-figurative art locally).

In June, in the city of Córdoba, he participated in the 2nd Biennial of Contemporary Painting “Pipino y Márquez,” organized by the Foundation of the same name. The prize was also presented in Buenos Aires, at the Van Riel Gallery. This was, once again, an invitational competition, and de la Vega was represented by a geometric work selected by Julio Payró, E. Rodríguez, and Cayetano Córdova Iturburu. Among the twenty participating artists were representatives of Informalism such as Greco, Mario Pucciarelli, and Kasuya Sakai; of lyrical abstraction such as Josefina Miguens and Víctor Chab; and of rational-based geometry such as Miguel Ángel Vidal, Eduardo Mac Entyre, and de la Vega himself.

He was invited to participate in the first edition of the Torcuato Di Tella Painting Prize, organized by the Di Tella Foundation and presented at the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA), directed by Romero Brest. The jury consisted of Romero himself and the Italian critic Lionello Venturi. The 24 invited artists were mostly associated with abstraction and informalism. Mario Pucciarelli won the prize. Noé and Macció were also among the invited artists.

The New Figuration Group was formed, comprised of Macció, Deira, Noé, and de la Vega. The four began working together, although they did not consider themselves an official group. Until 1965, they exhibited together on several occasions and shared workshops, discussions, and artistic experiences. Critics identified them as one of the key groups in the local art scene of the 1960s.

In November, he was included in the “First International Exhibition of Modern Art,” organized by Squirru, director of the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Buenos Aires (MAM), on the occasion of the inauguration of the institution's headquarters in the General San Martín Cultural Center. De la Vega submitted his work The Mechanism of Solitude, the first neo-figurative work he presented in a public exhibition (from then on, his titles acquired the effect of added value, revealing a complementary meaning about the painted image).
He was selected to participate in the group exhibition “150 Years of Argentine Art,” presented in an annex pavilion of the MNBA (National Museum of Fine Arts); a mega-exhibition organized to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the May Revolution (550 works, including paintings and sculptures, organized into six different periods, from 1810 to 1960). De la Vega was included in the section covering the last ten years, which, in the lavishly illustrated catalog, features a text by Samuel Paz, later deputy director of the Center for Visual Arts (CAV) at the Di Tella Institute. He presented two works from 1960: Pintura (Painting), one of his last geometric examples, and the neo-figurative oil painting Espejo (Mirror) (a work that opens up the field of reflection on mirrors, one of the iconographic and symbolic obsessions in his later production). The submission, decided by the organizing committee, is emblematic of the transition from his geometric style to his commitment to neo-figuration. The public had the opportunity to compare the de la Vega already known with his recent transformation. In his text, Paz writes: “De la Vega knows how to handle flat or geometric forms alternating with a material rich in depth and intense in color.” And later he adds: “Recently, some painters, it would seem, need to create pathetic forms through the exacerbation of color and the drama of deformation, as if, due to a certain age-old tradition, this type of feeling could not be expressed, with all its intensity, unless it were embodied in the human figure; thus, the image of man is reintroduced, as a corollary, after the successive shocks that made it the recipient of them. Rómulo Macció does so using expressionist strokes, Noé reintroduces his image in an adipose and glossy material.” It is interesting to note how, for the critic, Macció and Noé are identified with neo-figuration, while de la Vega is still included among the artists who work in the field of non-figurative painting.

In December, he participated in the group exhibition “Painters of the New Generation” at the Lirolay Gallery, organized by its director, Germaine Derbecq. This exhibition brought together the work of artists between the ages of 20 and 35, including Noé, Greco, Wells, Macció, Polesello, García Uriburu, Kemble, and J. López Anaya, among others. De la Vega exhibited Monologue, a painting from his new neo-figurative series, a gesture that should be interpreted as an affirmation of his new stylistic commitment, both to the art world and to the general public. At the time, Lirolay was the commercial space that fostered the most radical experiments in the local visual arts scene.

1961 She begins the season by participating in a group exhibition at the Bonino Gallery, alongside Juan Carlos Badaracco, Marta Peluffo, and Macció. She is exhibiting four neo-figurative oil paintings.

In July she participated in the exhibition “Contemporary Argentine Art”, presented at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.

In August, the New Figuration Group held its first exhibition at the Peuser Gallery. The chosen title was “Another Figuration,” and, responding to an open invitation from the four founders, Carolina Muchnik and Sameer Makarius also exhibited. The exhibition generated considerable controversy. However, the comments of Pellegrini and Hugo Parpagnoli in La Prensa, who defended the value of the proposal, as well as the opinion of Mujica Lainez in La Nación, proved decisive for its success. Romero Brest, on the other hand, reacted negatively. “Jorge Romero Brest immediately summoned us to a private meeting at 'Ver y Estimar' and there he really laid into us. We left so depressed that Jorge and I went home. Greco, who was with us, and a bottle of French grappa cheered us up. It was an emergency meeting: we had to pull ourselves together and move forward.‘ The catalogue began with a joint statement from the participants: ’We are not a movement, a group, or a school. We are simply a group of painters who, in our expressive freedom, feel the need to incorporate the freedom of the human figure. Because we believe precisely in this freedom, we do not want to limit it dogmatically, enslaving ourselves. This is why we omit the prologue. However, there is a reason for being, an artistic will that has driven us to create this exhibition. This artistic will is individual. This is why we refer to private confession. Let the exhibition speak for itself from the common root of this will.” De la Vega established his position with the following statement: “It wasn't exactly me who introduced human figures into my painting; I believe they used me to invent themselves; it wasn't a voluntary imposition but a natural encounter, and now I couldn't do without them without feeling my expressive freedom curtailed.”

In the same month, he was invited to the new edition of the Torcuato Di Tella Institute Prize at the MNBA. The jury, made up of Giulio Carlo Argan and Romero Brest, awarded First Prize to Clorindo Testa, a painter then identified with Informalism, and Second Prize to Macció.

In September, she presented a solo exhibition at the Lirolay Gallery entitled “De la Vega Paintings.” The catalog included a foreword by Germaine Derbecq.

He was invited once again to the Ver y Estimar Honorary Prize at the MNBA (National Museum of Fine Arts). Among the 56 participating artists, each with three works, non-figurative painting clearly dominated, with a predominance of informalism. The few figurative painters included Deira, Macció, Noé, and de la Vega. The prize was awarded to Juan Carlos Badaracco, an abstract painter, followed in the voting by Noé.

The four members of the Group traveled to Europe, settling in Paris. Deira and Macció received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and Noé a grant from the French government. De la Vega paid for the trip with his savings from working as a perspective artist. Noé and de la Vega departed by ship in September and, upon arrival, settled in a studio in Issy-les-Moulineaux. They discussed the limits of painting and the need to break with the traditional notion of the canvas. Their shared aesthetic concerns brought their work closer together, even in their different approaches. The notion of chaos and the dissolution of painting as such led them to reflect and investigate experimental works.

1962 He created his Liberated Forms or Liberated Images, experiments in breaking with the traditional support of painting by working with broken canvases in three-dimensional space. Only scant photographic documentation and statements by Noé, a direct witness to the process and realization of the series, survive from these works. Noé recalls: “The success of both the group exhibition and my own solo show [held in 1961] led me to suspect that we were creating a new version of Good Taste. I began to feel that, like Informalism, my painting, with its monochromatic and atmospheric predominance, created a harmoniously unified climate, completely anachronistic in a world of tensions and contradictions. Thus, in conversation with de la Vega and later with Macció and Deira, with whom I lived in Paris for about ten months, our second phase began to take shape […].”

De la Vega is included in the exhibition “Neo-Figurative Painting in Latin America”, held at the Pan-American Union in Washington DC.

He exhibited at the prestigious Galerie Creuze-Messine (Salle Balzac) in the group show “Pablo Curatella Manes and 30 Argentinians of the New Generation,” organized by Germaine Derbecq. Famous figures such as Le Corbusier, Malraux, and Bloch attended the opening. Among the other participants were Minujín, Heredia, Noé, and Greco. Greco presented his first work of Arte Vivo, Thirty Mice of the New Figuration (a glass box containing thirty white mice). “The Argentinians, except for De la Vega and Marta (Minujín), thought it was a great stupidity.”

Between August and October, the group participated in the “Exposition d'Art Latino-Americain” at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris with one of its Liberated Forms series. In addition to the group, other Argentine artists residing in Paris also participated in this exhibition, including Antonio Berni, Marta Boto, León Ferrari, Greco, Gyula Kosice, Marta Minujín, Julio Le Parc, Alicia Penalba, and Gregorio Vardánega. Latin American artists included Carlos Cruz-Diez, Pedro Coronel, Sergio De Camargo, Cicero Dias, Franz Krajcberg, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, Alejandro Otero, Jesús Soto, Rufino Tamayo, and Francisco Toledo.

De la Vega takes a short trip to Spain.

Upon returning from Europe, the four artists went to work together in the studio Deira had rented on Carlos Pellegrini Street. The group reappeared in Buenos Aires with an exhibition of drawings at the Lirolay Gallery titled “Esto” (This).

In October and November, the Group held two consecutive exhibitions at the Bonino Gallery. The first featured a prologue by Parpagnoli. In the second, de la Vega exhibited his Liberated Forms, begun in Paris. Deira recalled: “At the beginning of ’62, Noé brought up the proposal for an exhibition at Bonino. It was tempting, but I opposed it. I told Alfredo Bonino in person: ‘I oppose it because I fear he will impose conditions on the works to be exhibited or simply on the way they are exhibited.’”.
–You're very wrong, 'my dear' –Bonino replied–. I arrive at this exhibition at the 'vernissage' time.
And so he did. We hung the works in unusual places, above doorways, it was crazy. And he didn't arrive until a minute before the opening. Suddenly, the most unusual thing came from him: he wanted to extend the exhibition for another fifteen days. And we retorted: 'Fine, but with new works. We changed the entire exhibition in two weeks.'‘
[…] Following this exhibition, Romero Brest (we still had the bumps on our heads) offered us the museum he directed, and where we appeared, introduced by him.”.

1963 He began his series known as the Monsters or the Bestiary, which extended until 1966. Collage (bricolage) became increasingly abundant and prominent. The repetition of mirrors and pseudo-perspectives accompanied the iconographic density in which fantastic animals (such as schizobeasts) and real ones (such as the cat, the elephant, the worm) multiplied. Duplication (replication) became the fundamental resource for constructing his narratives, creating ambivalences and correspondences between what was painted and what was glued, between full positives and empty negatives, between collage and distorted tracings. Within the diverse and heterogeneous collage, he used thick glued fabrics to model the bodies of the animal protagonists. “Her technique at this stage is mixed, alternating collage with painting. She takes figures from popular and children's fantasy and transfers them to the canvas with strokes of paint and glued-on fabrics. Then she adds a surprising number of objects, such as mirrors, tokens, buttons, small plastic toys, playing cards, pieces of glass, tattered items, etc.”

The catalog of the Luis León de los Santos donation to the Rosa Galisteo de Rodríguez Provincial Museum of Fine Arts, in the city of Santa Fe, includes a monotype entitled Christmas.

It is included in the exhibition “Art of America and Spain,” organized by the Institute of Hispanic Culture in Madrid and inaugurated in the Velázquez and Crystal Palaces in the Retiro Park. The exhibition travels to six Spanish cities and also visits Rome, Naples, Bern, Berlin, and Lisbon.

In June, he made his first trip to the United States for the opening of a solo exhibition at the Pan-American Union in Washington, D.C. There is no further information about this trip, which must have lasted a couple of weeks before the presentation of the Group's exhibition at the MNBA.

In the second half of June, the Group held an exhibition at the MNBA (National Museum of Fine Arts) with an introduction by Jorge Romero Brest, a clear culmination of a local recognition that placed neo-figuration at the center of attention for both the specialized art world and the general public. De la Vega exhibited *Historia de vampiros* (History of Vampires), *Memoria de elefante* (Elephant Memory), and a drawing, *Hola?* (Hello?). In their joint statement in the catalog, the four wrote: “[…] it is worth reiterating that what has been called 'new figuration,' for lack of a better term, should not be confused with fashions. What we have sought, what we seek, implies the risk of exercising creative freedom. […] The fundamental point of agreement among us is the conviction that the only way to venture into art is to venture into humanity. A painting 'with life insurance' will never achieve that intended goal.‘ (The catalog itself is an important piece from the perspective of 1960s graphic design and was designed by Macció.)

He was invited to participate again in the Di Tella National Painting Prize, at the institution's new headquarters on Florida Street. With the presentation of the National and International Prizes, the Di Tella Institute inaugurated its Art Museum. Deira and Noé were also invited to participate in the National Prize, while Macció was selected for the International Prize. Noé won the First National Prize and Macció, the First International Prize. The jury consisted of Jacques Lassaigne, a French art historian; William Sandberg, director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; and Romero Brest, advisor to the CAV (Center for Visual Arts) and still director of the MNBA (National Museum of Fine Arts). The catalog includes excerpts from a conversation between the artist and Parpagnoli: “I want my work to shock the viewer with the same intensity with which all its parts shock each other, however small they may be. A mother-of-pearl token on a stain. The number next to the stone. A tinsel beast. A chimera of smoke. Beings measuring themselves against the void and a mirror in which to see themselves.”.

Exhibition of the New Figuration Group at the Bonino Gallery in Rio de Janeiro. A show of significant historical importance within the context of Rio's art scene, which was further solidified with a second exhibition held in 1965. Several testimonies exist regarding this exhibition from Brazilian artists and critics such as Antonio Dias, Gerchman, Frederico Morais, and Paulo Herkenhoff.

During this year, he was selected individually or as a member of the New Figuration Group to participate in several exhibitions of Argentine art abroad, in cities such as Montevideo, Lima, Madrid, Santiago de Chile and Paris, among others.

The Group exhibits works at the National Commission of Fine Arts in Montevideo with the same catalog as the MNBA.

1964 His explorations in collage (bricolage) and the narrative and plastic possibilities of simulated mirror effects culminated in the multiplication of animal faces and bodies. He created his series of Anamorphic Conflicts using the technique of false oblique perspectives (anamorphosis), developed in 17th-century European painting within the Baroque period and its relationship to difficulty, darkness, deception, and appearances in the schemes of perception. He developed the system of distorted tracings in what he himself called "nostalgic images," explaining his work and his images in terms of the relationship between reality and memory. He produced a significant body of work on paper: inks combined with rubber stamp prints whose iconography repeatedly featured animals such as giraffes, elephants, rats, and fish, sometimes incorporating letters and phrases. Some figures refer to the functions and internal organs of animals and their scientific classifications by genus and family, characteristics of zoology books.

In September, he was invited to participate, for the fourth and final time, in the Torcuato Di Tella Institute National Prize. He presented four of his Anamorphic Conflicts (unlike Noé and Macció, de la Vega never received any awards or had any works acquired by the Di Tella Institute). In this 1964 edition, among the national prizes, Marta Minujín received First Prize for two of her works from the mattress series, and Emilio Renart received a special prize for his Bio-cosmos Integralism No. 3.

He participated in the Second American Biennial of Art in Córdoba, organized and sponsored by Kaiser Industries, with three of his oil collages from the Monsters series. The selection committee included, among others, Ignacio Acquarone, Oliver, Pellegrini, and Parpagnoli. The venue was the National University of Córdoba.

In October, he opened a solo exhibition at Bonino with the presentation of 14 works (the complete series of the six Anamorphic Conflicts and eight medium-sized collages of the Monsters). A text by Michel Tapié dedicated to the artist served as a prologue in the catalog. Tapié was the French critic who first used the expression "informal art" to describe the works of Dubuffet, Fautrier, and Wols, and the creator of the concept of "other art" (an expression that served as a starting point for the Argentine neo-figurative artists in the title of their first exhibition, "Other Figuration"). The series comprises The Measure, The Defenses (later known as The Defenders), Memory, Air, Water, and Earth. Tapié writes: “The allusions to possible repetitions, impossible today outside the baroque signifier, condition a latent magic within a content as evident as it is vigorous, as incommunicable as it can be outside of a deep and enveloping artistic communication, in which the very notion of civilization is conditioned and, fortunately for our tomorrows, is conditioning, within the rich ambiguity of an indefinable dynamism and a cynical force of inertia, within structural sets as open as they are enveloping.”.

Critic Lawrence Alloway invited him to participate, along with the other members of the Group, in the IV Guggenheim International Award in New York. The exhibition traveled to the Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts; the Akademie der Künste in Berlin; the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; the John and Mabel Ringling Museum in Sarasota; and arrived at the MNBA in April 1965.

Among the international exhibitions, his inclusion in the one titled “Nievwe Realisten” (New Realists), organized by the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, is particularly noteworthy. This exhibition toured Vienna, Berlin, and Brussels between 1964 and 1965, under different titles and with some variations in the works. De la Vega was included with two of his most important collages from the Monsters series: *Historia de vampiros* (History of Vampires) and *Los juegos del amor y del azar* (The Games of Love and Chance).

He is invited to the Carnegie Institute International Award in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

With the Group he was selected for the exhibition “New Art of Argentina”, a traveling exhibition that opened at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and was presented in various cities in the United States until it concluded, in March 1965, in Austin, at the University of Texas Art Museum.
Participates in group exhibitions such as “New Personalities of Latin America” (Pepsi-Cola Exhibition Gallery, New York) and “First International Show of Pop-Art” (James Morris International Gallery, Toronto).

In November, with Romero Brest's blessing, the new Relieves gallery opened with a group exhibition of Argentine artists titled "Relieves '64," featuring, in addition to de la Vega, Paparella, Wells, Deira, and Pérez Celis, among others. The catalog's foreword was written by Marta Traba, then director of the Museum of Modern Art of Colombia.

In November and December, he participated, with his work Integration, in a collective exhibition of Argentine painting held at the El Círculo Theater in Rosario.

1965 Last year of activity for the New Figuration Group. Macció is going to Europe, Noé to New York, and Deira and de la Vega will be visiting professors at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York).

It is part of the exhibition “Twenty South American Artists” at the Kaiser Center in Oakland, California (a selection of works participating in the 2nd American Art Biennial). A note appears in the February issue of Art International magazine, which features the work The Muscles of Memory from the Monsters series.

The Monsters' oil paintings are filled with an increasingly extreme collage, both in the glued objects and the glued draperies. The volume of the collage plays with the inclusion of frankly geometric areas and with some intermediate experiments that incorporate reproductions of interior photographs that contrast with their asceticism and descriptive coldness.

In June, an exhibition of the New Figuration Group at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. A testament to the influence of Argentine neo-figuration on the Rio art scene.

In June, he participated in the exhibition “Noé + Collective Experiences,” which opened at the MAM (Museum of Modern Art). Other participants included Aizenberg, Deira, Barilari, Maza, Carreira, Jacoby, Pérez Celis, Wells, and Suárez, among others. In the catalog (in the form of a handwritten letter), Noé explains: “As I write this, I still know nothing about what this single collaborative work will become. I will know, as we all will, when it is finished. I believe above all in art as experience. This is what has led these artists to accept my proposal. Most have done so with such spontaneity that, although the adventure is unprecedented, it is clear that it was already a possibility for all of them.”.

He won the Bonino Gallery Drawing Prize, awarded in July as part of the gallery's 200th exhibition celebration. This is the first prize of his career, despite having participated, since 1960, in most of the major contemporary art awards. A jury composed of Héctor Basaldúa, Mujica Lainez, Noé Parpagnoli, and Romero Brest awarded his ink drawing, "El 60 % de los minutos" (The 60 % of the Minutes), chosen from among the works of the 31 invited artists. “No fewer than 345 artists—good, average, and some innocently bad—filled the vast venue with their works. Almost all of them had submitted several pieces, so the jurors' efforts can be understood as they navigated a labyrinth where they were constantly bombarded by the opening and closing of portfolios; where fiercely contradictory artistic trends clashed with more or less opportune champions, each vying to impose the virtues of their principles; and where it was necessary to exclude valuable submissions because they belonged to the field of painting.” A note in the magazine Primera Plana pointed out: “[…] in twelve years, this is the first time his name has appeared at the top of an art ranking. ‘I was already resigned,’ he confesses, ‘to being a kind of perpetual finalist.’” (Primera Plana, 3/8/65)

In August, the Bonino Gallery presents the exhibition “Young Argentine Artists” at the Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC) in Lima, featuring 11 local painters. De la Vega participates with two of his Monsters: Falling Consciousness and Double Placement.

Exhibition of the New Figuration Group at the Argentine Hebrew Society (SHA), between July and August.

In September, the New Figuration Group exhibited at Bonino. The four artists each decided to present a single, large-scale work. Noé, Macció, and de la Vega explored the problem of three-dimensionality through concepts akin to installation art. De la Vega participated with his installation Four-Legged Table, later known as The Necromancer (a table with a plaster top and real mirrors combined with three walls constructed from panels inhabited by monsters created with paint and collage). The catalog reproduced the drawings for the four projects, and de la Vega imagined his “quasi-installation” at the time of the opening in a photomontage featuring some of the leading figures of the Buenos Aires art scene of the 1960s (in addition to the four artists, Romero Brest, Minujín, Mujica Lainez, and Bonino also appeared).

Visiting professor during the Latin American Year at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he has been based since October. To finance his trip to the United States, he received a Fulbright Exchange Commission scholarship. He resided in the United States for almost two years, alternating his stay at Cornell University with frequent trips to New York, where Noé and his family were also living.

From this stage of his life there remains an additional source of information in the 40 letters addressed to his mother, which are still kept in the hands of his family.

He participated in the group exhibition “The Emergent Decade: Latin American Painters and Paintings in the 1960s,’ organized by Cornell University and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. De la Vega sent two of his Anamorphic Conflicts. The curator of the exhibition was Thomas Messer, then director of the Guggenheim, who had selected artists and works during his visit to Buenos Aires in 1964. The exhibition opened in October 1965 at the Andrew White Museum at Cornell University, but a selection (including de la Vega's) was presented earlier at the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas under the title ”Evaluation of Latin American Painting: The 1960s.“ The exhibition's tour, which lasted more than a year, also included the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. the Krannert Art Museum (University of Illinois), the Decordova Museum in Massachusetts, and the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, where it closed on May 7, 1967.

The first works appear with the introduction of distorted male and female figures in flat, concave mirrors, and psychedelia as the visual culture of the time in the cultural industries and information technologies. Pseudo-anamorphosis and oblique perspectives continue, manifested in human faces in virtual mirrors and in repeated figures printed on canvases stretched over a frame.

He was selected with 2 works from the Monsters series to be included in the exhibition “Argentina in the world. Visual Arts 2”, organized by the CAV of the Di Tella Institute, with a jury made up of Romero Brest, Oliver and Parpagnoli.

1966 While at Cornell he painted Images, his closing work in the Monsters series, whose starry background is a direct quote from American pop art.

A series of small acrylic paintings gradually built his new iconographic world. Thin fabric stencils glued onto the supports and a decidedly psychedelic palette defined his early American works. He employed framing and syntax borrowed from media such as photography, film, comics, advertising, and television. Drawings multiplied, all adhering to the same narrative and thematic approach. He explored a variety of techniques, including stencils, colored fibers, inks, and "efasages" (a type of layering) with the use of collage or materials taken from typical American magazines such as decoration or entertainment publications like Playboy.

In June, he attended the opening of the aforementioned exhibition, “The Emergent Decade…”, at the Guggenheim. The institution acquired his collage Anamorphic Conflict No. 1 The Measure, through a gift from the Neumann Foundation of Caracas (a grant that also enabled the purchase, at the same time and always through Bonino, of works by Deira and Fernández-Muro).

In September, after his contract as a visiting professor at Cornell University ended, he moved to New York City.

His work Music Hall (Caracas version) was chosen to be part of the exhibition “Art of Latin America since Independence”, organized by Stanton Catlin and Terence Grieder and presented at the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven), at The University of Texas Art Museum (Austin), San Francisco Museum of Art, La Jolla Museum of Art, Isaac Delgado Museum of Art in New Orleans.

During his time in New York, he began his relationship with Liliana Porter and her husband, the Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer. With them, he explored various printmaking techniques and conducted several graphic experiments within the context of the renowned New York Graphic Workshop (NY GW), founded in 1965 by Porter and Camnitzer along with the Venezuelan artist José Guillermo Castillo. This workshop focused on technical experimentation, seeking to combine individual creativity with collective exchange and the social role of the artist, and challenging the excessive formalism and limitations of traditional printmaking.

Since the previous year, he had several conversations with Alfredo Bonino, who offered him a solo exhibition at his New York gallery, a project that never materialized. Bonino did, however, include some of his acrylics in group exhibitions presented at his space on 57th Street West.

While still in the United States, he received news that he had been awarded the “Special Painting Prize” at the III American Biennial of Art in Córdoba. The jury consisted of Alfred Barr (Jr.), Director of Collections at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York; Arnold Bode, founder and president of Documenta in Kassel; Sam Hunter, Director of the Jewish Museum in New York; Carlos Villanueva, a Venezuelan architect; and Pellegrini. De la Vega presented four large-scale works created in the United States: acrylic on canvas depicting human figures distorted in concave mirrors. This was his first public exhibition in Argentina of new works.

According to later statements by the artist himself, he works in New York designing psychedelic posters.

Throughout his stay in the United States, and through letters to his mother, we know that the painter sold several of his new works and pieces from earlier series. These sales were made through Bonino and some directly, especially on the recommendation of Sam Hunter, who was very enthusiastic about de la Vega's work. At that time, or in the immediate years that followed, the Bonino Gallery sold several important works by de la Vega to institutions such as the John Fitzgerald Kennedy University in Berkeley and to private collections such as that of Nancy Sayles Day, now in the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, and that of Paul S. Newman in New York (dismantled in the late 1990s).

1967 Around April he returns to Buenos Aires.

During this year, he alternated his psychedelic works and flat concave mirror pieces with the appearance of his first black and white paintings. In these latter works, the figures are increasingly subjected to extreme, low-angle framing where bodies are fragmented into intermingled masses of limbs and faces. During this year, and until 1971, he worked alongside his painting with a considerable number of mixed media techniques, including collages and acrylics, inks and colored fibers, cut papers and manipulated collages, stencils, and so on. The origin of these works on paper lies in the large number of ink drawings he produced at Cornell in 1966. However, the initial world, focused on the pursuit of success and the artificial pleasures of advertising and television in mass society, acquired a different density when exploring themes such as marginal cultures, alienation, sexuality, and various countercultural forms, as well as references to art history, such as those taken from Caravaggio.
In June, the Di Tella Institute inaugurated the exhibition “Surrealism in Argentina,” organized by Pellegrini. De la Vega participated with Anamorphic Conflict No. 6 – The Earth, from 1964, and two of the concave mirrors: Everyday Life (1965) and She Never Had a Boyfriend (1966). “In De la Vega’s work, the obsessive, nightmarish images, which frequently take on a serial aspect, are deformed, fused, and coagulated. Constructed in his early period by collages of various objects, in his recent works he creates them through a mechanism similar to printing on canvas.”

In July, he participated in a group exhibition at the Bonino Gallery, “Collages,” along with 11 other artists. The painter sent one of his Schizobeasts from 1964. The catalog reproduces the definitions of collage given by each of the participants. Regarding this technique, which had been the expressive and conceptual support during the development of the Monsters and Anamorphic Conflicts, and which remained present in much of his work, de la Vega wrote: “[collage] a recognizable individuality, subordinated to another, new, more complex form that includes it without destroying it, is nonetheless a good portrait of the best destiny of man. […]”.

He was invited to participate in the Dr. Augusto Palanza Prize, presented at the Witcomb Gallery. Established in 1947, the Palanza Prize was one of the most prestigious competitions in Argentina during the 1950s and 60s. Participation was by invitation only, and the prize was awarded to the best body of work. The competition was organized by the National Academy of Fine Arts. Ten painters were invited for this edition, including three from the former New Figuration Group (Macció, Deira, and de la Vega. Noé had been invited in 1962). The jury awarded the prize to Deira. De la Vega participated with five acrylics on canvas from his latest work: You are Welcome, Somatization, 1000 Calories per cm2, King Size Vitamins, and Surface Tension (the latter two are currently of unknown whereabouts).

He is working with Federico González Frías on a comic strip for issue number 1 of Cuadernos de Mr. Crusoe, which is published in November. The character is called Mr. Waltz and the actor is Alfredo Cernadas Quesada.

That same month, he held a solo exhibition: “Black & White: Recent Works by Jorge de la Vega” at the Di Tella Institute, invited by its director, Romero Brest. He presented 36 works created in the United States in 1966, mostly drawings, although the article in the magazine Análisis mentions 150 works, including oil paintings and drawings. The catalog reproduces the project for an infinite jigsaw puzzle made up of 48 interchangeable pieces, which is the precursor to the Carmen Waugh version of the jigsaw puzzle he created years later. “Infinite jigsaw puzzle. Instructions: Cut out the pieces. Assemble the puzzle. Add as many squares—black, white, or drawn by you—as needed. Discard what is left over.” This exhibition marked his return to Buenos Aires after a two-year absence. It attracted nearly 20,000 visitors in three weeks and made de la Vega one of only nine artists to have had solo exhibitions at the Institute during its ten seasons.

In December, he was invited to participate in the second edition of the Criterio Prize at the MAM, along with José Antonio Ballester Peña, Ernesto Deira, and Carlos Uría. The Prize proposes a single theme to the invited artists: the four chasubles of the liturgical year—green, purple, white, and red.

One of his prints made at the NYGW has entered the MoMA collection. It is the soft-ground, colored aquatint Our Neighbors (1966).

1968 His acrylics on canvas are multiplying, alternating psychedelic pieces with his black and white works.
In May she is part of the collective exhibition “Imaginary Portraits”, inaugurated in Bonino, with her acrylic Eleonor Rigby.
In July he exhibits at the IDA gallery, at the same time as Jorge Demirjián.
The Guernica gallery is showing 25 works on paper from the series Invitation, Intrusion, and Indifference. The exhibition is titled “De la Vega in Color.”.

In addition to his work as a painter, he has also been increasingly involved in songwriting and composing. At the end of September, while recording his first album, he performed a musical show with Nacha Guevara and Carlos del Peral at the Teatro Regina, titled "Hay que meter la pata" (You Have to Put Your Foot in It).

In October, he presented his album, "El gusanito en persona" (The Little Worm in Person), at Bonino Gallery for 15 days. The gallery walls were covered with the album cover, designed by the artist himself. "De la Vega Exhibits Songs" was the title chosen for the exhibition. It was the painter's first public performance as a singer-songwriter. The album included 10 tracks: "Proximidad" (Proximity), "La gata Teresa" (Teresa the Cat), "Rotativa" (Rotating Press), "Abracadabra," "Diamantes en almíbar" (Diamonds in Syrup), "La hora de los magos" (The Hour of the Magicians), "El gusanito" (The Little Worm), "La jaula" (The Cage), "Están ocurriendo cosas" (Things Are Happening), and "El gusanito en persona" (The Little Worm in Person).

“[His] intense need for communication, for more direct communication, is channeled in his later period into his songs. These songs constitute a clear unity with the attitude that guided the creation of his works from this later period. In the lyrics of these mocking yet affectionate songs, he pours out an irrepressible anxiety to participate in the world; in their personal performance, he felt happy to be in contact with others, to collectively build the task of overcoming anguish through a humor full of hope.” The relationship between his song lyrics and his iconography in the field of visual arts is evident, and parallels and analogies can be drawn that simultaneously enrich both modes of expression.
In November he participated in the last award of his career: the Lorenzutti Foundation Award, presented in the National Exhibition Halls.
He is the artistic advisor for the first three issues of the countercultural magazine Pinap, where he also publishes a new comic strip.

In November, he opened a solo exhibition at the General Electric Institute in Montevideo. The presentation of works from his black and white series received widespread coverage in the Uruguayan press.
It is the cover of the December issue of ARTiempo magazine with the title “Figure and counterfigure of the protest song” (ARTiempo, Monthly Magazine of Art and Entertainment, December 1968, No. 3, Year I).

1969 He performed a musical show at the Audiovisual Experimentation Center (CEA) of the Di Tella Institute with Marikena Monti and Jorge Schussheim, titled "Songs in Informality." It was a resounding success, and after these performances, Gerardo Mazur hired them to perform at the SHA auditorium, with shows every Monday. The audience's positive reception led to continued performances throughout the year and into 1970.

A jury composed of Pellegrini, Jorge López Anaya, and Parpagnoli invited him to be part of the Argentine delegation to the 10th São Paulo International Art Biennial. De la Vega's idea was to present 15 acrylic paintings of varying sizes from his Puzzle series, along with his songs. An article published in Panorama magazine, questioning the submission process and even his selection, led him to withdraw his participation, despite being listed in the catalog alongside the other selected Argentine artists. In an article published in the magazine Análisis about the international boycott of the Biennial due to the political situation in Brazil, de la Vega offers a different explanation for his withdrawal: “Biennials featuring brilliant artists can no longer function; in any case, I don't feel included. I believe that the artist emerges from the people, like new forms of life, and I'm not interested in working with institutes and museums. At one point, I considered traveling to São Paulo and presenting a musical performance to denigrate the image of the painter as a figurehead; but now I don't even feel like engaging in protest. It's difficult to choose between two antiquated forms of expression, between two shameful things.” (Análisis, No. 437, Year IX, 7/29/69.)

In July, his work was included in the exhibition “Latin American Paintings from The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,” held that month at the Center for Inter-American Relations in New York. The catalogue features a foreword by Thomas Messer and an essay by Stanton Catlin.

In September, he presents the show-exhibition “Painting vs. Songs” at El Galpón in Santa Fe. The painter performs his songs surrounded by his paintings.

In October, the "Bárbaro" bar opened on Reconquista Street, number 800, in Buenos Aires. Designed and decorated by Noé, its name was suggested by de la Vega. The two street-facing windows were painted, one by Deira and the other by de la Vega (the one on the right, featuring five faces and some legs and arms that reiterate characters from his "Rompecabezas" (Puzzle) exhibited at Carmen Waugh in 1970, using the same stencils with variations in the distortions and spatial stretching). A reproduction of another of de la Vega's works also appeared on the cover of the bar's price list. When the "Bárbaro" moved to Tres Sargentos Street, the dismantled window displays were installed inside the bar.

MoMA incorporates by donation two of his New York drawings made with colored fibers and ink, Documental (1966) and Parenthesis (1967).

1970 He is a guest performer at "La Fusa" in Punta del Este, following his performances the previous year at "La Fusa" in Buenos Aires. For fifteen days he is accompanied by Marikena Monti, after which he performs solo.

Solo exhibition of drawings at the Punta del Este Casino.

The New York Graphic Workshop presents an exhibition of his works at the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas, and de la Vega is included with his prints made during his stay in the United States.
The First National Bank of Boston acquired works by 24 Argentine artists and exhibited the collection at the MNBA (National Museum of Fine Arts) between April 1st and 19th. De la Vega was included with three acrylic paintings (two of which are now in private collections, and the third, titled Billiken, is unlocated).

In September, a solo exhibition at the Carmen Waugh gallery, where he presents his Puzzle made up of movable pieces of 100 x 100, and a show with his songs 3 times a week. The title was “Jorge de la Vega Exhibition-Concert,” and the program catalog explained: “Puzzle Exhibition. On display are 30 one-meter squares made with acrylic paint on canvas, which can be joined together to form a continuous image, with the unique feature of allowing for infinite combination possibilities. The works can be purchased individually or in groups; the price per unit depends on the number of works. Puzzle Concert: arrangements and musical direction: Roberto 'Chameleon' Rodríguez. Musicians: Ángel Sucheras, organ. Bo Ingemar Gathu, bass. Eduardo Casella, percussion. Tracklist: 1. Density 2. The Little Worm 3. Achidente 4. Diamonds in Syrup 5. Maladjustment 6. The Ostrich Train 7. Cruel Imagination 8. The Hour of the Magicians 9. Metamorphosis 10. Proximity 11. Curriculum 12. The Old Man in the Galley 13. The damned ones. 14. The little worm himself.‘.

During the show's presentation, he improvises a monologue in which he explains the storyline that connects his songs and the painted puzzle. “Now, seeing all this, I thought I could do like those traveling minstrels who roamed the roads, who were called 'cantastorie' in Europe, and what they did was tell, using a drawn comic strip as a basis, the most famous crime of the moment. And seeing my own
Looking at the paintings, I think it's undeniable that a crime has been committed, because these people have lost their color, for starters. Furthermore, there's no doubt they've been dismembered. The heads are in some squares, the hands in others. They can be put together in any way. And yes, the crime would be quite mysterious, because they all seem delighted to have been murdered. The mystery, I believe, will lie in that tonight, in trying to explain how it's possible that all these murdered people are either delighted to have been dismembered, or haven't yet realized they're dead. Of course, what I'm also going to give you to help solve this puzzle is a puzzle of songs. So there won't be any other way to solve the problem, the mystery, except through absurdity.”

Méndez Mosquera and Seoane hire him as a creative at the company Cicero Publicidad.

1971 It is presented at “La Fusa” in Mar del Plata.
He participates in the SHA theater in the show Marginal Songs along with Susana Rinaldi, Facundo Cabral, Edmundo Rivero, Schussheim and the Cedrón quartet.

In April he was invited by the National Museum of Fine Arts of Santiago de Chile to hold a solo exhibition as part of the official reopening program of the institution (among the other scheduled exhibitions were Macció, Lea Lublin and contemporary Cuban art).

He works on his album El viejo de la galera, which he records but never gets released.

De la Vega endorses the São Paulo Counter-Biennial, organized by the Latin American Museum (a group of artists based in New York) and MICLA (Latin American Cultural Independence Movement), in the form of a publication featuring contributions from artists, critics, and intellectuals. De la Vega signs a declaration from the Argentine group, which includes Berni, Noé, Deira, Ferrari, Briante, Iommi, Santana, Renart, and C. Alonso, among others.

It gave its name to a restaurant opened by Noé on the same Reconquista street, opposite the “Bárbaro”. The place was called the “Jamonería de Vieytes”.

At the end of June, he participated in the collective experience organized by Noé at Carmen Waugh, entitled “The Pleasure of Painting.” The invitation read: “Now that there is so much talk about whether painting is alive, dead, or dying, Luis Felipe Noé has proposed this idea to the gallery in order to highlight what is most enduring in painting throughout the centuries—not the eternity of the work and its transcendence, but simply 'The Pleasure of Painting.' As the creative adventure is increasingly collective nowadays, this exhibition aims to highlight the pleasure of painting together.‘.

In a short note in Gente magazine on the occasion of his participation in “The pleasure of painting”, he says that he is writing a book of illustrated stories and making electronic music (Gente magazine, 15/7/71).

1971-2000
He died in Buenos Aires on August 26, at the age of 41.
On October 28, 1971, “Homage to Jorge de la Vega” was inaugurated, a solo exhibition organized by Carmen Waugh in her gallery on Florida Street.

In the last 30 years, among the most important solo exhibitions of his work we can mention: Conkright Gallery, Caracas (1973); National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires (retrospective, 1976); Arte Nuevo Gallery, Buenos Aires (1978); Scheinsohn Gallery, Buenos Aires (1979); Vermeer Gallery, Buenos Aires (paintings and drawings from the '60s, 1981); Ruth Benzacar Art Gallery, Buenos Aires (works 1963-65, 1991); Borges Cultural Center, Buenos Aires (works 1961-1970, 1995); Art and Technology Foundation, Madrid (works 1948-1970, 1996), Ruth Benzacar Art Gallery, Buenos Aires (works 1966-1971, 2000).

Among the historical exhibitions of the New Figuration Group, we recall: “Another Figuration… twenty years later”, San Telmo Foundation, Buenos Aires (1981); “Deira, Macció, Noé, de la Vega”, National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires (1985); “New Argentine Figuration”, 18th São Paulo Biennial (1985); “New Figuration. Deira, Macció, Noé, de la Vega”, Giácomo Lo Bue, Mendoza (1985); “The New Figuration”, Ruth Benzacar Art Gallery, Buenos Aires (1986); “New Figuration Rio/Buenos Aires”, Gallery of the Brazil-Argentina Cultural Institute, Rio de Janeiro (1987), “The New Figuration”, Jorge Mara Gallery, Buenos Aires (1989), “Deira, Macció, Noé, de la Vega 1961 New Figuration 1991”, Recoleta Cultural Center, Buenos Aires (1991).