Untitled, 1981

León Ferrari   Famous Artists

Original stainless steel sculpture. Incised "Leon Ferrari 1981" on a metal plaque affixed to the lower area of the sculpture.

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About the Artist: León Ferrari was an important Argentine artist whose work dealt with issues of inequality and discrimination. “Art is not beauty or novelty, art is effectiveness and disruption," he once said. Born on September 3, 1920 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he went on to study engineering at the University of Buenos Aires. Throughout the 1950s, Ferrari spent much of his time in Italy, working as an engineer while also studying ceramics and sculpture. He settled back in Argentina in the 1960s, and during the rise of the dictator Pinochet in the early 1970s, began writing articles and producing works strongly condemning the regime. Because of his political stance, Ferrari's son was abducted by the military and murdered. With his own life in danger, the artist fled to Brazil in 1976, where he remained until 1991. In this period of exile, the artist created conceptually oriented postal art, artist books, and sculptures. In 2004, Ferrari was again the subject of controversy, this time for an exhibition revealing his criticism of Catholicism. The Archbishop of Buenos Aires (currently Pope Francis), demanded Ferrari's exhibition to be closed down, though the Archbishop's request was initially granted it was later overturned by the government. The artist died on July 25, 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, among others.