Delesio Antonio Berni

Delesio Antonio Berni, born in 1905 in Rosario, was an Argentine painter, printmaker, muralist, collage artist, and experimental media artist. He began studying drawing and painting at the Centre Català in his hometown and held his first exhibition as a teenager, presenting oil paintings of landscapes and floral studies. In 1925, he received a scholarship that allowed him to travel to Europe. After spending time in Spain, he settled in Paris, where he continued his artistic training and became interested in surrealism, metaphysical painting, politics, and psychoanalysis. Berni returned to Argentina in 1930, where he increasingly focused on the political and social conditions shaping the country.

Berni developed a body of work that moved from surrealist painting toward social realism focused on labor struggles, poverty, industrialization, migration, and political violence. In the late 1950s and 1960s, he developed the Juanito Laguna and Ramona Montiel series using discarded materials collected from urban neighborhoods, including scrap metal, cardboard, wood, fabric, lace, and industrial debris. These works became some of the best-known images associated with twentieth century Argentine art. In 1969, Berni became a member of Grupo de Arte y Cibernética Buenos Aires, founded through the Centro de Arte y Comunicación by Jorge Glusberg following contact with the Computer Technique Group in Japan. Alongside artists including Ernesto Deira, Rogelio Polesello, Miguel Ángel Vidal, Osvaldo Romberg, Eduardo Mac Entyre, and Luis Fernando Benedit, he participated in experiments involving computers and cybernetic art. The group’s first exhibition took place at Galería Bonino in Buenos Aires and focused on computer generated imagery.

Throughout his career, his work was exhibited in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. In 1962, he won the Grand Prix for Printmaking at the Venice Biennale for works from the Juanito Laguna series, which brought broader international attention to his oeuvre. In 1979, he was appointed a member of the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Argentina. Today, his work is held in museum collections including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, MALBA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He passed away in Buenos Aires in 1981