Pío Collivadino

Pío Collivadino (August 20, 1869 – August 26, 1945) was an Argentine painter of the Post-Impressionist school.

Life and work Pío Collivadino was born in Buenos Aires, in 1869. He studied drawing at the Italian Argentine cultural society, the Societá Nazionale de Buenos Aires, and in 1889, he traveled to Rome, where in 1891 he was accepted into the Accademia di San Luca, the National Academy of Fine Arts. There, he was mentored by Cesare Mariani, and collaborated in decorative frescoes in the Constitutional Court of Italy.

He returned to Argentina in 1896 and became known for his romanticist lithographs. Colllivadino attended three international festivals in Venice, from 1903 to 1907, where his La hora del reposo (Workday Break, 1903), also known as La hora del almuerzo (Lunch break time) earned a gold medal. He was also at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in St. Louis, where he earned a silver and a gold medal.

Collivadino remained sought after in Argentina, and served in numerous art juries. He was named Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1908, and was prominent in Buenos Aires' Centennial International Exposition, in 1910. A 1946 young graduate of the Prilidiano Pueyrredón School of Fine Arts and one of Collivadino's last students, famed painter, cartoonist, journalist and author Geno Díaz (Eugenio Díaz del Bo), described those circumstances in his 1984 autobiography, stating that: On the 4th of June , the revolution erupted and expelled the school’s director, don Pío Collivadino, a man of a great technical knowledge, a distinguished artist who had devoted his life to the School. He was cruelly replaced by one of those incompetent perverts, and the illustrious elderly master died of sadness. It was one more crime, among many others, of fascism in Argentina. The noted painter and teacher died in Buenos Aires, in 1945, at age 76.