Pedro Figari

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Figari, Pedro (1861–1938). Uruguayan painter, born and mainly active in Montevideo. He had a versatile and distinguished career as a lawyer, politician, writer, and editor (he founded the Montevideo newspaper El Diario) and although he had studied painting in his youth he did not devote himself full-time to art until 1921, when he moved to Buenos Aires. Although he was already 60, he rapidly made a name for himself as an artist and his work was widely exhibited in Uruguay, the USA, and Europe. From 1925 to 1933 he lived in Paris, then returned to Montevideo. Edward Lucie-Smith (Latin American Art of the 20th Century, 1993) writes: ‘Figari's work shows the direct influence of the French intimistes, that of Vuillard perhaps even more clearly than that of Bonnard, spiced with a certain deliberate naïveté. His thematic range, however, is wider than that of either of the French artists. It is also specifically Latin-American, since it includes not only bourgeois interiors but historical and literary scenes, and also Creole and Afro-American subjects.’ His work is well represented in the National Museum at Montevideo.

Figari, Pedro (b Montevideo, 29 June 1861; d Montevideo, 24 July 1938). Uruguayan painter. He had a versatile and distinguished career as a lawyer, politician, writer, and editor, and although he had studied painting in his youth he did not devote himself full-time to art until 1921, when he moved to Buenos Aires. By this time he was already 60, but he rapidly made a name for himself as an artist and his work was widely exhibited in Uruguay, the USA, and Europe. From 1925 to 1933 he lived in Paris, then returned to Montevideo. Edward Lucie-Smith (Latin American Art of the 20th Century, 1993) writes: ‘ Figari's work shows the direct influence of the French intimistes, that of Vuillard perhaps even more clearly than that of Bonnard, spiced with a certain deliberate naïveté. His thematic range, however, is wider than that of either of the French artists. It is also specifically Latin-American, since it includes not only bourgeois interiors but historical and literary scenes, and also Creole and Afro-American subjects.’ His work is well represented in the National Museum at Montevideo.