Tomás Maldonado, 1944-1957: From Arte Concreto to nueva visión

Abstract

This article analyses the origins of modern design in Argentina, focusing on the early career of artist Tomás Maldonado, that is, the period prior to 1954, when he left Argentina to teach at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) in the city of Ulm (Germany). The article reviews Maldonado’s leading role in the Argentine avant-garde group Arte Concreto Invención. It discusses Argentine artistic and publishing initiatives, as well as the international network formed by Argentine Arte Concreto Invención and Concrete Art movements in Brazil and Switzerland. In that context, the article describes how concepts on modern art and modern architecture were communicated in some early Argentine publications distributed across Latin America, specifically nueva visión magazine (1951–1957), directed by Tomás Maldonado, and the Nueva Visión publishing house, founded in 1954 and directed by Jorge Grisetti, one of Maldonado’s disciples. The corpus examined here includes “printed ideas” important to the field of design since they constituted the conceptual foundations for design education in Argentina and contributed to the debate on modern art, modern architecture, and design at a large number of Latin American universities.