Dignora Pastorello Argentine, 1914-2001

Dignora Pastorello (b. 1914, Banfield – d. 2001, Buenos Aires) was an Argentine painter whose lifelong dedication to her practice established her as a singular figure within twentieth-century Argentine art. At the age of fifteen, convinced that painting was her vocation, she enrolled at the National School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, later refining her training between 1953 and 1957 in the studios of Jorge Larco, Ramón Gómez Cornet, and Luis Centurión. Working with remarkable discipline throughout her life, she maintained a daily studio practice that remained central to her identity and artistic production.

By the late 1950s, Pastorello had begun exhibiting regularly in solo and group exhibitions and became the only woman member of the artist collective Grupo Cinco, through which she expanded her public presence. In 1967, she was invited to participate in Primitivos actuales de América (Contemporary Primitives of America) in Madrid. Her work subsequently toured several Italian cities alongside that of twelve Argentine painters, was exhibited in Washington as part of a presentation of naïve painting, and appeared in exhibitions in Ecuador and Mexico. Between 1959 and 1985, she received approximately twenty awards in national and provincial salons, where her paintings were consistently selected for exhibition.

An attentive observer of the world around her, Pastorello relied on memory and sketches rather than photographs, transforming daily experience and extensive travels into highly personal compositions. Cats, poetry, music, and classical literature were enduring sources of inspiration throughout her life, while painting remained, in her own view, her primary language of expression.

Her work is represented in major public collections throughout Argentina, including the Fine Arts Museums of Avellaneda, Campana, Catamarca, Luján, and Posadas; the Genaro Pérez Municipal Museum of Fine Arts in Córdoba; the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires; the Museum of the National University of La Plata; the Museum of the Sea in Mar del Plata; and the Museum of Modern Art of Mendoza, among others. Her paintings are also held in private collections in Argentina and internationally.

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