Antonio Berni
Antonio Berni is an important artist of social realism. Berni principally began his career as a surrealist, but the socio-economic crises that occurred in Argentina in the 1930s inspired him to focus on social realism, treating themes of protest, challenging the injustices and the inequalities of society.
Throughout his career, Berni developed a large body of graphic prints, with which invented new techniques of collotypes and woodcuts in high relief. In this particular work, the artist uses the print process to create an image of a bullfighter with the face of a skeleton. Strong and direct in its representation, the tile, El Matador, implies his literal concern to represent a killer instead of a celebrated bullfighter. Based on this idea the work of art is an attempt to criticize the political dictators who have killed thousands of people during their periods of domination.
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