Martha Boto

Martha Boto (27 December 1925 – 13 October 2004) was an Argentine artist. Boto was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was co-founder of the Group of Non-Figurative Artists of Argentina. She is considered to be a pioneer of kinetic and programmed art.

Life Coming from a family of artists, where they always supported her in her vocation. She studied drawing and painting at Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in 1944, and graduated in 1950.

She moved to Paris in 1959 with her husband and collaborator Gregorio Vardanega, where she lived until her death in 2004. During the 50s she had her first concerns regarding space, which ended in creations of structures where she made use of plexiglass with colored water. By 1956, she joined the Concrete art group "Arte Nuevo".

After Boto moved to Paris, Denise René promoted her work. Boto looked for an art capable of awakening different emotions, psychological reactions of joy and tension, an art that could become a medicine for the spirit.

Boto's work is included in international collections world wide, which includes the collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida. Her work is on view to the audience as of 2024.

Representative Artworks

Optical Structure, 1962, plexiglass, 90 x 45 x 45 cm. Mouvements chromocinétiques, 1971. MNBA collection, Buenos Aires.

Personal exhibitions 2004 - Moving Parts: Forms of the Kinetic, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland; Kunsthaus, Gras, Austria.

Collective exhibitions 1964/65 - Kunsthalle, Museum of Bern, Switzerland.