Born in Buenos Aires on April 22, 1902, Rachel Forner was an Argentine painter and engraver with an expressionist tendency, considered one of the best Argentine painters of the second half of the 20th century.
Daughter of Spaniards, Forner He discovered his artistic vocation on a trip through Spanish lands made at the age of twelve. At the end of her primary studies, she entered the National Academy of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires, an institution where she obtained the title of Professor in 1922.
Extremely sensitive, he translated on canvas his concern for the destiny and life of human beings, and his work became a reflection of reality, lived from his own experience.
Influenced by the teachings of the French painter Otón Friesz, Raquel he created his own style and made a neo-figurative painting, marked by pain, which later gave rise to an expressionist symbolism.
After exhibiting his works at the Salon de Tuileries in 1930, he returned to his hometown, where he established, along with other artists, courses in Visual Arts. The Forner-Alfredo Bigatti Foundation is located in his workshop, converted into a museum-workshop.
At the age of thirty-five, he won the Gold Medal at the Paris International Exposition. Three years later his work was exhibited in Pittsburgh and in 1955 he won the Palanza prize in Buenos Aires and the Grand Prize of Honor at the National Fine Arts Hall.
Impressed by the Spanish Civil War, she painted a series of paintings whose main theme was this historical event. Bitterness and terror were reflected in his drama and exodus, which at times approached surrealism. From then on, his painting became a witness to a conscience shaken by the misfortunes of wars.
He borrowed ideas from surrealism during the 1940s, adapting his distortion aesthetic without seeking to reproduce a dream state. In 1942 he obtained the first place in the competition of the National Hall of Argentina. During the 1940s through most of the 1950s, he produced several series on tragic themes in a primarily expressionist fashion. Forner often portrayed strong female figures, but not as specific explorations of gender norms.
Starting in 1957, coinciding with the space race, the attention of Forner focused on imaginary scenes of interplanetary travel. With his Space Series, which was exhibited in Europe and gained much recognition, became one of the first artists to portray scenes from outer space. This period is characterized by a more vibrant use of color and a personal cosmic mythology of his own making. His artistic depictions of space travel continued into the 1970s. The United States National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC has several examples of his later work in its collection.
His work was widely exhibited throughout Argentina, and he received two Konex Awards (the highest in the Argentine cultural sphere) in 1982. Forner died in Buenos Aires in 1988. That year, the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires organized a retrospective in your Honor.