IDBURY PRINTS

JULIO SILVA (Argentine/French / 1930-)

The painter, printmaker, and sculptor Julio Hector Silva was born in Argentina in 1930. Since 1955 he has lived in Paris, taking French nationality in 1967. From 1972 he has divided his time between Paris and Italy, where he sculpts in Carrara marble. Notable sculptures by Julio Silva included Pyegemalion in the Forum les Halles, and Dame Lune on the central axis of La Défense in Paris. Silva had strong affinities with the CoBrA group, and his energetically expressionistic work has similarities to that of Pierre Alechinsky and Karel Appel. Another strong influence on Julio Silva's work is African art, of which he has been an important collector. Silva first exhibited in 1959 at the Galerie de l'Université in Paris. Since then he has had solo shows across the world, including one at the Musée Saint-Croix Poitiers in 1979, of which there is a catalogue, Julio Silva: peintures, dessins, gravures, marbres, bronzes. In 2004 he exhibited at the Kuntur Fine Art Gallery, Amsterdam. Silva was a close friend of the Paris-based Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, and they collaborated on several books, including Silvalandia and Les Discours du Pince-Gueule. Our signed lithographs by Julio Silva come from his lithographic suite Sonora: Préambule Mimétique, published in an edition of 100 copies in 1963. The sheer gestural playfulness of these seemingly spontaneous lithographs is like a lesson in the history of twentieth-century art's quest for a sense of childlike authenticity - here a touch of Picasso, here an echo of Miró, here a reclining form like a Henry Moore, yet all expressed with a wonderful sureness of individual expression.

See also:

PIERRE ALECHINSKY
KAREL APPEL
MAX KAMINSKY
JOAN MIRO

Selected prints by JULIO SILVA

   
Sonora XXVIII, 1963
Lithograph
 
Sonora X, 1963
Lithograph
 
Sonora II, 1963
Lithograph

View all available prints by JULIO SILVA