Miscellany. Jujuy - Buenos Aires. 1958.

Portrait of Medardo Pantoja with Luis Pellegrini in gelatin silver -measures: 11.2 x 8.5 cm / 4.4 x 3.34 in- accompanied by a handwritten letter, signed and dated "6/10/58" by Grete Stern.

Portrait of the painters Medardo Pantoja and Luis Pellegrini, in the former's house, in Tilcara. Stern captured them coming out of the home into the central courtyard, with the towering hills behind. We read in this warm letter that Stern explains to Pantoja, having taken portraits of both artists and their works.

Medardo Pantoja (1906 -Tilcara- 1976) studied in Rosario de Santa Fe with Antonio Berni, and later in Buenos Aires, with Lino Enea Spilimbergo. He obtained an award at the XXXIV Salon de Bellas Artes. Then he returned to Jujuy, where he worked as a teacher, and was director of the School of Arts. Invited by Spilimbergo, he worked for several years at the Art Faculty of Tucumán. His last years were spent in the company of his wife Luisa, mentioned in Grete Stern's letter.

For his part, the artist Luis Pellegrini (1911 - 1995), born in Buenos Aires, was received at the "Manuel Belgrano" Academy of Decorative Arts, and perfected with the teachers Urruchúa, Spilimbergo, Castagnino and Policastro, among others. In 1951 he went to live in Jujuy, where he taught and became friends with Pantoja. He frequented all techniques, always interested in drawing (charcoal, pencil, sanguine). He obtained the National Grand Prize in 1953 for the drawing "La Rosa", which belongs to the National Museum of Fine Arts. His relevant work integrates numerous collections, among them: the National Museum of Fine Arts; the Hening Collection, from Germany; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires, and among others, the Eduardo Sívori Museum of this city.

Grete Stern (1904 - 1999), of German origin, studied photography and design at Stuttgart, and later trained in Berlin with Walter Peternhans, from whom she bought her enlarger when he moved to Dessau to practice at the Bauhaus. Stern, together with Ellen Auerbach, created a society dedicated to commercial photography and once the photographer Peterhans returned to Berlin, she enrolled in the Bauhaus headquarters to continue her studies with her teacher. There she met the Argentine photographer Horacio Cópola, her future husband. Due to the advance of Nazism, the Bauhaus closed, both of them left first for England and in 1935, for Argentina. For years she lived in Ramos Mejía, her house was a meeting place for the artistic avant-garde that resided in our country. That marriage dissolved, but both continued their photographic careers and today are part of the plethora of artists who excelled in the 20th century. In 2015, the MoMA in New York gave them a consecrating exhibition, entitled “From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires: Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola”.

BMM