THE ART OF LA BOCA

La Boca neighborhood has a particular type of art, a colorful art. Through the XX Century, as many Italian immigrants settled in La Boca, the place became a special area of the city. They worked in the port and live in humble houses which they painted with the colorful boat paint excess they had. Many popular artists born in La Boca depicted these times: Benito Quinquela Martín is probably the most famous one.

The Beauty Arts Museum of La Boca (1835 Pedro de Mendoza Avenue), named after that great artist, offers a great retrospective of the art of La Boca. Under the name “Argentinian Traditional Figurative Art”, you can enjoy more than 80 works from Quinquela Martín itself and other visual artists of that time. These creators tried to give back the people of La Boca all the inspiration they gave them.

In these works you can see those colorful houses of beginnings of the XX Century, the same houses you can still see in Caminito. There are also images of the port, the boats and their colorful flags, the port workers, the joy and the suffering of their lives back then. Images from La Boca and its unique style you should see if visiting Buenos Aires this January.