Julia Wernicke

Julia Wernicke (August 26, 1860 – October 25, 1932) was an Argentine painter and engraver. She is known as the first animalist painter from Argentina and incorporated exotic animals into her paintings. She paved the way for female artists in Argentina through many firsts, especially within the discipline of engraving. Wernicke was one of the first women to have an individual exhibition of works in Buenos Aires, in 1897; and the first person to have an individual exhibition of engraved etchings in Argentina, in 1909.

Family Julia Wernicke was born in Buenos Aires, the daughter of respected educator Robert Heinrich (Roberto Enqrique) Wernicke (1826–1881) and his wife Ida Augusta Beltz von Hagen. Both were German immigrants. Roberto arrived in Argentina in 1848.

Roberto Enrique Martín Wernicke (1852–1922), doctor and bacteriologist Zügel's teaching had a significant impact on Wernicke: throughout her career, she chose to paint exclusively animal paintings, which were considered a strange choice for a woman at that time.

Wernicke became known as the first animalist painter from Argentina.

Exhibitions Beginning in the 1880s there was "an unparalleled influx of paintings and sculptures" into Buenos Aires. Although European art tended to be preferred over local artworks, artists and intellectuals organized four collective exhibitions focusing on local artists at the Buenos Aires Salón del Ateneo, or Atheneum, during the 1880s-90s. Women were well-represented in the exhibitions of the Ateneo: in 1894, 27 of 67 exhibitors were female, while in 1896 women artists were in the majority. On October 20, 1895, at 35 years of age, Julia Wernicke participated in the third exhibition of the Ateneo, which included 180 works from 71 artists (18 of whom were women).

On May 21, 1897 La Nación reported that Wernicke planned to hold workshops to give young ladies lessons in painting, drawing and portraiture.

Wernicke's work was shown at the , in the Plaza San Martín, Buenos Aires. The exposition opened on October 16, 1898, and closed on November 20.

Wernicke was one of only two women artists, of those who participated in exhibits at the Ateneo, whose works were included in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA). The other woman to be included was her friend Elina Gonzalez Acha. Wernicke's Toros was purchased in 1899 by Eduardo Schiaffino, the MNBA's founder and first director. The scholarship went to Méndez. A third contender, Marcelino Barneche, was awarded a similar scholarship later on. Other medal-winners in the show included the painter Eduardo Sívori (1847–1918) and the sculptor Lucio Correa Morales (1852–1923).

Again in 1909, Wernicke held a solo exhibition, this time at the Galería Witcomb.

In 1926, , daughter of Lucio Correa Morales and Elina González Acha de Correa Morales, went to Germany, where she studied art with Julia Wernicke. Mira Schor notes that their association has been largely ignored and Wernicke has been dropped from accounts of the younger artist's "linaje paterno". Correa Morales married sculptor Rogelio Yrurtia in 1936, and the Yrurtia Museum in the Belgrano neighborhood became the home of their joint collections. Correa Morales influenced the museum for many years as a painter, donor, and director, and included the works of herself, Julia Wernicke and other women artists in exhibits and in catalogs.

Critical responses Like other women artists, Wernicke's career has not been deeply studied. She was recognized as an artist in her own time. It is also clear that this reflected a bias on his part against women artists, who he considered inferior.

Carlos P. Ripamonte, writing of Argentinian artists in 1930, recognized Wernicke as a pioneer, both as a professional artist and as an art teacher.

Wernicke was discussed by in El arte de los argentinos (1937). Pagano ranked her as an artist, not an amateur. But even when allowed the possibility of genius, both she and her works were expected to fit a set of highly gendered expectations.

In the 1950s and 1960s, praised Wernicke both for the quality of her work, and for doing work that did not fit the expectations of the time for women artists. He laments that she had to battle against disinterest and incomprehension. Wernicke is mentioned in passing in other accounts, and is being critically reassessed by 21st-century academics, who are interested in both her work and the ways in which she and other artists were marginalized by critics, academics and institutions.

Georgina Gluzman discusses changing attitudes to women artists in the fin-de-siècle period in Argentina and the ways in which female participation in the arts was connected to ideas of modernity and progress. She also examines the effect that systemic processes of obliteration have had on Wernicke and other Argentine women artists such as Eugenia Belin Sarmiento. Gluzman is curating a 2019 exhibition focusing on works by women artists in the Fine Arts museum's reserve collections, including Wernicke's Toros.