Painter, sculptor, illustrator, the prolific creator resided in France since the 1960s, but was in Buenos Aires at the time of his death, Saturday, February 26th.
Le Monde
The Argentinian painter and sculptor ANTONIO SEGUI, a major figure of the Latin American art scene, installed in France since the 1960s, died on Saturday, February 26, at the age of 88, when he was at Buenos Aires. Creator of the mythical little men in hat who populate his satirical work, Antonio Segui is the author of a prolific figurative work of paintings, prints, lithographs and engravings that illustrate an ironic vision of society, impregnated with nostalgia and poetry.
Antonio Segui died of heart failure after a hip operation, the newspaper reported the Nacion, citing relatives related to his family. Born on January 11, 1934 in Cordoba, 700 km west of Buenos Aires, Antonio Segui organized some 200 individual exhibitions during his long career. In France, it was promoted in 2018 to the rank of officer in the Order of Arts and Letters and was a member of the European Academy of Science, Arts and Letters.
After studying painting and sculpture in France and Spain from 1951, he traveled throughout Latin America and finally finally settled in France in 1963. “Even if it’s been sixteen years old That I live abroad, I feel every day more Argentine, “he said, in 2018, to the nacion.
The Pompidou Center had devoted to him in 2005 the first retrospective, in France, his works on paper, putting “in light a work where humor and poetry defy all the pre-established styles”. “I do not see what to do other than working,” said Antonio Segui to AFP in an interview in Paris as he presented in 2019, at age 85, a half-hundred exhibition of his works. At the National Library of France, to which he had just donated half a thousand of them, including prints, portfolios and illustrated books.
Although living in France, he never ceased to return to Argentina, except during the years of the dictatorship (1976-1983), where the military even refused to renew his passport. His Parisian workshop served as a refuge for many intellectuals, artists and musicians of the twentieth century during the years of Latin American dictatorships. “With art, we can easily say things, it’s the only way to fight seriously,” he said to AFP.