Visiting Benito Quinquela Martin....

A visit to La Boca today, mainly to visit the museum where Benito Quinquela Martin, the Argentinian painter, made his home decades ago, and where he painted his evocative scenes of La Boca: factories, smoke stacks, hazy air, flaming sunsets, burning wrecks, glowing furnaces, crowded harbour...but most of all ships, barges, sail boats, row boats...and stevedores going about their back breaking work under atrocious conditions.
His museum is hardly visited by the crowds of tourists, which populate El Caminito, maybe 100 yards away, to watch tango shows and buy souvenirs...an oasis of beauty in the Chaos of La Boca.



 

Benito Quinquela Martin
Iconic Painter of La Boca Maritime Scenes

 

 

Better than any description on my part, who this painter was in real life and how his paintings captured the La Boca environment of the early 20th Century, here is a short video (with the appropriate Gardel Tango 'Caminito') illustrating his life and art.

 

 

All of his paintings show incredible contrast of light and dark....

Benito

The museum is located in Quinquela's old house, a building several stories high, which at one time also served as a school. Quinquela carried his love of colour not only to the walls of his home, but also to furniture, appliances, including pots and pants, even the burners of his gas stove were painted in different colours....

Quinquela had a very modest beginning, and experienced the hard live of settlers of La Boca first hand. He was born (a guess by people who found him) March 1, 1890, an orphan, adopted by an Italian father and an Indigenous mother. He worked as a child in his father's 'carboneria', coal yard....but he had a passion...painting, which brought him international recognition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Quinquela_Mart%C3%ADn

Taking a bit of an 'adventurous' ride in a rowboat on the Riachuelo...one may get an idea how Quinquela was inspired to use his vibrant colours...

His house, now museum, is spacious and airy....this photo shows the size of some of his pieces.

 

Next celebration of his life and art: 9 March 2016....paint the streets of Boca....I may just go and grab a brush and join the fun!

Benito Quinquela Martin died Jan 28 1977, he is buried in Chacarita Cemetry (same one where Carlos Gardel has his last rest) in a coffin, he painted himself a year before his death.

"Quien vivió rodeado de color no puede ser enterrado en una caja lisa"
"He who lived surrounded by colour cannot be buried in a plain box."

On the cover of the coffin was a painting of the port of La Boca....