Sergio de Castro in his studio, Paris, 1954. Photo: Jose Antonio Mendia

“I will paint studios all my life perhaps, as others have painted self-portraits”
Sergio de Castro, interview with art historian Denys Sutton, 1960

SERGIO DE CASTRO: THE STUDIO

Lucía Méndez Soria
Sorbonne Université – CRIMIC EA 2561

“I may paint studios all my life, just as others have painted self-portraits.” 1 The words of Franco-Argentinian painter, musician and poet Sergio de Castro (1922-2012) invite us to explore the many facets and meanings of the studio space in his work: from its concrete, historical dimension as a place for the creation, conservation and dissemination of his works, as well as through its contextualisation in the sociocultural milieu of post-war Paris; and as an autonomous pictorial subject, lending itself to an interplay of interlocking forms and the use of mise en abyme, and thereby reflecting a potential mirror or double of the artist himself. In Castro’s particular case, the studio became a place of intimacy, fulfilling a profound need to put down roots for an artist who considered himself perpetually exiled.

During his early years in Paris, and particularly from 1951, when he committed himself to painting, securing a studio became an increasingly urgent priority. From his first arrival in the capital, Castro lived at various addresses – including Rue de Javel, Boulevard Exelmans and Rue Raymond Losserand (where he was photographed by Julio Cortázar in 1951) – until 1953, when he had the opportunity to move into the poet Fernando Pereda, reveals the urgency Castro felt about the move, presenting a vision of the studio as a magical, wonderful space, even before he had moved in: “I had the opportunity, unique in all of France, to get a studio without having to pay for the key; however, I had to commit to making a series of repairs in the studio before moving in, and I don’t have enough money at all! It’s a terrible situation! […] I am halfmad and trying not to lose this studio. […] I need to gather a certain amount of money to gain entry into this castle-fortress studio of madmen. Don’t forget me! I’m going through a terrible time […] it will be years before I get another opportunity like this.”2

It was thanks to Pereda that Castro was able to move into the studio of his dreams, the poet sending him the money he needed to carry out the renovations. The studios at 16 and 16 bis Rue du Saint-Gothard were originally temporary structures built for the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, intended to showcase French artists “at work”. After the Exposition, the studios were dismantled and relocated to Paris’ 14th arrondissement, opposite the railway tracks and near Parc Montsouris, which had been created just a few years earlier. The space Castro moved into had been Gauguin’s studio in 1889, the very place where he painted The Schuffenecker Family – with the dome of Sainte-Anne visible in the background, along with the window and the stove, just as Castro found them upon his arrival in 1953. Soutine and Modigliani had also kept studios on Rue du Saint-Gothard. When Castro took up residence there, he shared the courtyard at number 16 with the studios of Brassaï and Claude Mercier. Shortly after moving into this historic setting, Castro wrote an enthusiastic description to his friends in the summer of 1953: “The move into my house is progressing, though some small details are still missing. It’s total madness: huge, 9 metres x 6 metres – with a narrow 10-metre balcony overlooking the street – there are no neighbours in front but a large expanse through which the train passes – everything is green. I get incredible SUNSHINE and a moon that emerges from the trees like a large fruit; the silence is appalling – it feels like the house is on an island outside of Paris, yet I’m only 10 minutes from Châtelet! Denfert is just a 2-minute walk away. The wall opposite is stone, but I’m on the first floor and at the same height as the greenery that grows on the sides of the railway; the train is electric, with no smoke – and it doesn’t pass very often – at night the trains are fantastic, real mechanical Jonahs […]. Everything here is magical […].” 3

1 -Interview with Denys Sutton, recorded on tape at the studio, 20 and 21 January 1960. Transcriptions preserved at Sergio de Castro’s studio, Paris
2 -Sergio de Castro, letter to Fernando and Isabel Pereda, Paris, 23 March 1953. Manuscript preserved in the archives of Castro’s studio, Paris (original text in Spanish).
3 -Sergio de Castro, letter to Fernando and Isabel Pereda, Paris, July 1953. Manuscript preserved in the archives of Castro’s studio, Paris (original text in Spanish).

Castro describes the balcony on the main façade, as it stands today, as a transitional space that allows the studio to open out onto the railway tracks, the greenery – since, when Castro moved to Rue du Saint Gothard, there were SNCF gardens there – and the vastness of the sky. Castro’s first studio was part of a shared space, at first, occupied alongside other families. It was within this relatively small space that he had to prepare the sketches for the stained-glass work entitled La Création du Monde at the Benedictine Monastery of Saint-Sacrement in Couvrechef-la-Folie (Caen, France), a work measuring 120 square metres and produced between 1956 and 1959. 4

Sergio de Castro’s studio became “the Saint-Gothard of legendary friendly celebrations” 5, a microcosm of sociability thanks to the presence of the painter’s
friends. His friendships bear witness to the special character of the Parisian universe, the emotional, social and cultural exchanges in which the studio played a fundamental role. Julio Cortázar described Castro’s studio in these terms in 1969: “I will go to see you as I have so many times before, some morning when you will be waiting for me with Cretan wine from the great bulls of Minos, admirable paintings and your friendship.” 6

The studio was indeed a regular haunt for writers and poets such as Julio Cortázar, Octavio Paz, Samuel Beckett (who used to spend hours in silence in front of the paintings, particularly Le peintre et son modèle, from 1978 ; p.10), Fernando Pereda, Josep Palau i Fabre, Roberto Juarroz, Alejandra Pizarnik, Pierre Lecuire, Georges Schéhadé and Jean-Dominique Rey. Castro cultivated friendships with fellow artists, such as painters Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szénes, sculptors Alicia Penalba, Claude de Soria and Isabel Waldberg, and musicians such as Maurice Ohana, André Boucourechliev, Henri Dutilleux and Japanese soprano Yumi Nara. Critics and art historians frequented the studio, including André Chastel, Jacques Thuillier, Antonio Bonet Correa, Denys Sutton and John Russel, as well as photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Martine Franck, Josef Koudelka and Dominique Souse. It was also a place where friendships were forged – Castro met the poet Paul Celan, for example, through Edith Aron, a writer and translator who inspired the character of “La Maga”, the heroine of Julio Cortázar’s novel Rayuela (English: Hopscotch). 7 Thanks to Cortázar, both the studio and Castro himself entered the world of fiction, with the painter inspiring the character of Étienne, one of Horacio Oliveira’s close friends in the novel. In Cuaderno de bitácora de Rayuela, Cortázar’s notes describe Étienne with reference to his friend Castro, alluding to Étienne’s studio, which he calls “Sergio’s”. 8 Indeed, the studio appears explicitly in chapter 100 of Rayuela: “At that hour Étienne was probably painting and he hated for people to call him in the middle of his work, but he had to call him just the same. The telephone began to ring on the other end, in a studio near the Place d’Italie, four kilometres from the post office on Rue Danton.” 9

4 -Véronique David, “Castro et le défi du vitrail” [“Castro and the challenge of stained glass”], in In Situ, no. 12, 2009
5 -Julio Cortázar, typed letter to Sergio de Castro, Saignon, 1969, preserved in the archives of the Castro studio, Paris, published in Carles Álvarez and Aurora Bernárdez (coord.), Cortázar de la A a la Z: Un álbum biográfico, Barcelona, Alfaguara, 2014, p. 258 (original text in Spanish).
6 -Ibid.
7 -Edith Aron, 55 Rayuelas, Barcelona, Belacqua, 2007, p. 200.
8 -“Étienne. Étienne must be a fascinating character. He’s the one with the connections, the quotes, the theories. Étienne’s studio: Sergio’s. In the grand discussion about Morelli, Étienne will draw on all his literary, bookish knowledge, without any repugnance.” Julio Cortázar, Ana María Barrenechea, Cuaderno de bitácora de Rayuela, Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana, 1983, p. 183 (original text in Spanish).
9 -Julio Cortázar, Rayuela (1984), Madrid, Cátedra, 2011, p. 623 (original text in Spanish).

Alongside this turn towards fiction, the studio became a primary aesthetic concern for Castro in his pictorial and poetic work – it became a tool for observing the world. In a 1960 interview with the art critic Denys Sutton, Castro described his observation of the changing light in the studio: “At the end of the day, when the light fades, I never turn on the electric light, never in my life! That would be criminal. A great mystery unfolds at that moment, and you must let things bathe in the kind of rain that falls upon them. I look around my studio a great deal at that moment, and I walk around; I look at all those turned frames. They are spectators, and actors; they are very demanding.” 10

The studio then became a subject in its own right, eventually emerging as one of the major themes in Sergio de Castro’s work. So significant was this theme that, in the 1968 edition of the Encyclopaedia Universalis, Marie-José Mondzain included the painter in the entry on “Studio”. The studio was the culmination of his concerns, a theme capable of giving rise to “infinite variations”. 11 The studio works provoked reflections on space and depth – just as his Greek landscapes from the same period served as a meditation on light, a form of recollection. In his Ateliers series, Castro constructed a space that completely abandoned the illusionism of perspectivism, instead working by superimposing planes and glazes. Objects were reduced to their silhouettes, superimposed, juxtaposed and assembled. Castro worked from small gouaches or notes, some examples of which have survived. When he was working on large-format pieces, as was often the case, he would pause at certain, particularly “difficult” sections to make drawings and work on them individually. 12 Castro’s choice of the studio as a theme responded to a very intimate need, as he shared with Denys Sutton: “I remember that when I arrived in Buenos Aires to live there on my own – this was on 1 July 1942 – one of the first things I did was to draw my bedroom. […] I always wanted to draw the place where I lived. When I painted my first large studio, perhaps I was doing the same thing.” 13

The starting point was, quite simply, a need to preserve a trace of the places he had inhabited – without transforming the Ateliers into mere “documents” or faithful reproductions of his studio (since the documentary role had already been fulfilled by photography). The poet Jean-Dominique Rey defined these paintings as a search for a synthesis between objects and space, in such a way that “brushes, canvases, rollers and stretchers generate space” 14. He rightly employed the term “abstraction”, in the sense of a reduction, a quintessential form of his studio, which could be endlessly reinvented, a work in progress that staged “the work being made and seeing itself being made”. 15

This is how the shift towards the self-critical, or self-reflective, dimension of his studio works came about. Indeed, the studio enabled Castro to explore another of his favoured themes: “the paintings within the paintings”, which, as the poet Claude Esteban observed, speak to us of “the inaccessible”. 16 These interlocking spaces – multiplied when the Ateliers are photographed in the studio – link Castro to the Spanish pictorial tradition, a connection nurtured by the artist’s deep admiration for Velázquez. The studios function as tools for thought, objects of meditation and dialogue with the past – the studio is, as Roudaut puts it, “the place that generates a vision”. 17 The play on mirrors and the use of mise en abyme are always accompanied by the presence of the artist himself in the painting, in his studio, sometimes embodied by a self-portrait, sometimes evoked by his brushes: “It looks as though I’ve just left, leaving them there just half a second before, so as not to appear on the canvas. But I am present in this canvas, I think.” 18

10 -Interview with Denys Sutton, op. cit.
11 -Marie-José Mondzain-Baudinet, “ATELIER, art”, Encyclopædia Universalis
12 -Interview with Denys Sutton, op. cit.
13 -Ibid.
14 -Jean Dominique Rey, “L’atelier du Saint-Gothard”, Sergio de Castro: Les Ateliers 1958-1969, Galerie des Ambassades, Paris, 1989.
15 -Ibid.
16 -Claude Esteban, “Cosa mentale”, in Sergio de Castro – Les Ateliers, Valenciennes, Galerie Monique Delcourt, 1974.
17 -Jean Roudaut, “Parmi les livres de Sergio de Castro”, in Théodore Balmoral, no. 16/17, autumn/winter 1993, pp. 109-113. Reproduced in Jacques Thuillier (ed.), op. cit., p. 215.
18 -Interview with Denys Sutton, op. cit.

The concept of the studio as a “self-portrait” thus reaches its full expression in Castro’s work. Marie-Pierre Colle-Corcuera highlights that the artist “identifies deeply with his studio. […] He lives where he works. The painter’s whole being is a studio.” 19 These statements underline an organic link, a strong involvement of the body. Castro’s life and work are closely intertwined: his studio is the physical embodiment of this intimate and vital bond. Jean Roudaut says: “Sergio de Castro’s home appears to be an amplification of his studio” 20, as the spaces where he works, houses his artworks and lives are all intermingled.

Sergio de Castro’s nomadic childhood and the years of his youth spent between Montevideo, Córdoba and Buenos Aires left him with an awareness of his own uprootedness, the identity of an exile that he would never abandon. Although his exile was of his own choosing, this did not lessen his profound need to put down roots, to find not only a place to work but an anchorage, a home – “el hogar”. The studio thus played a fundamental role in the construction of the artist’s identity. In 1994, he told Colle-Corcuera: “As I have no ground under my feet, never have had and never will have, I am a total exile. Perhaps my painting is a way of finding out who I am. It is up to me to make up my own identity. […] I am a native of Argentina, of Spanish origin; I’ve spent my life on the outside. I am nothing. But my painting, that is something.” 21

Castro’s studio cannot be understood without considering it in an emotional context, within the enormous and varied circle of friends who gravitated around this workspace, which, for the Argentine painter, was at the crossroads of two complementary and superimposed concepts. On the one hand, the studio was a place of concentration, silence and withdrawal, necessary for work; on the other, the studio was a social space. As Marie-José Mondzain points out, in Paris in the twentieth century, the studio “is a complete world where cosmogonic work is carried out, often stripped down and almost always solitary.” 22 It became not just a place for the artist to work; it was “their home, their kingdom” 23. Roudaut also describes the Castro-style studio as a necessarily “solitary” place. 24 The studio was, nonetheless, an essential space for exhibitions, poetry readings and socialising, the place where all those friends we have mentioned would pass through. It may have been a closed, insular universe, but it was an island through which the winds would blow. For Castro, the studio, like his painting and poetry, served as a kind of floating homeland – shaped in his own image.

19 -Marie-Pierre Colle-Corcuera, Artistas latinoamericanos en su estudio, Mexico, Noriega Editores, 1994, p. 96.
20 -Jean Roudaut, op. cit., p. 215.
21 -Marie-Pierre Colle-Corcuera, op. cit., p. 97.
22 -Marie-José Mondzain-Baudinet, “ATELIER, art”, op. cit.
23 -Ibid.
24 -Jean Roudaut, op. cit., p. 215.

THE STUDIO OF A PAINTER AND MUSICIAN

Élisabeth Dufourcq, writer and friend

To enter the world of this Argentinian creator, you have to take your time, observe, and watch, until his lines orchestrate themselves like a score. Then, space and time respond to each other. To watch is to mark the rhythm. Along the line of the golden ratio, the suspended lamp is both compass and metronome.

The stretcher profiles indicate the depth of the canvases, their nails marking the scale, their keys taut on the woven reverse side of the works yet to come. The verticals of a harp, and the angles of bows, evoke Manuel de Falla. To see the floors, you have to stand on tiptoe, as if stepping into a game of hopscotch.

On the table, a detail is never just a detail. It is a character, speaking in its own alphabet.

The grammar of the pencil differs from that of the brush. Everything has its place.

To the right, a finished landscape, the memory of a past journey relived in the present.

Elsewhere, a flower, almost animal-like, a tree still untamed. Visitors passing through, speaking in another language?

Further along, a window or door may lie in wait – the studio’s time holds the explorer back.

INTERVIEW WITH SERGIO DE CASTRO (EXTRACT)

Jean-Dominique Rey
Catalogue from the Castro Retrospective 1972-1978
Maison des Arts et Loisirs, Sochaux, 1991

J-D. R. – Did you notice a transformation in your palette when you returned to painting in 1970?
S. C. – (…) It was 1972, the year that marked a new departure in my painting. That year, and those that followed, were a second birth for me as a painter. (…)
J-D. R. – Could you define what characterised that new phase? Did you observe the emergence of new subjects, or the metamorphosis of earlier themes?
S. C. – Now, twenty years after that decisive turning point in 1971, it is easier to understand what happened. In general terms, I would say that my painting shifted from a classical style, conceived in planes, to a baroque style, conceived in strokes. From a palette dominated by tone to one dominated by colour. From a static, silent world to a dynamic, sonorous one. This system exceptionally, it was superimposed over a values-based system.
J-D. R. – What about your themes?
S. C. – The usual subjects of my paintings – still life, the studio, and landscapes – underwent a metamorphosis; they acquired a visionary character. (…) My studio works were no longer orthogonal plane structures enclosed within the floor-wall relationship, but a space where a few upturned canvases (1972) were at play, and which reflected ever more closely the notion of a place of creation.

SERGIO DE CASTRO
(1922-2012)

SERGIO DE CASTRO’S EARLY LIFE AND ARTISTIC TRAINING
Born on 15 September 1922 in Buenos Aires, Sergio de Castro spent his childhood between Lausanne, Switzerland, and Turin, Italy. The young Sergio learned Spanish in Uruguay and began writing his first poems. In 1939, at the age of 17, Sergio de Castro walked along the Uruguayan coast by himself, travelling from Montevideo to Brazil. It was then that he met Joaquin Torres-Garcia (1874-1949), an artist whose teaching would play a decisive role in the Argentine’s development. At his father’s request, Sergio de Castro spent a year studying architecture; meanwhile, he was already active as a composer and also began to explore drawing and painting.

SERGIO DE CASTRO AND MUSIC
A multi-talented and precocious artist, Sergio de Castro also expressed himself through music, which he studied from 1933 to 1938. He wrote musical works that were performed in concert for the first time in 1940 at the University of Montevideo. It was then that he was spotted by the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler and the composer Alberto Ginastera.

In 1945, Sergio de Castro moved to Córdoba in Argentina, where he worked as the assistant of the composer Manuel de Falla for 18 months, until the latter’s death. In 1947, the actress Cecilia Ingenieros—a student of the dancer Martha Graham—staged a ballet at the Teatro del Pueblo in Buenos Aires based on Sergio de Castro’s musical work Doce variationes breves. Two years later, he was appointed as a professor of music history at the new conservatory in La Plata, Argentina. With the help of a grant from the French government, Sergio de Castro moved to Paris in 1949 to complete his musical training. The following year, he joined the music group Zodiaque, which was headed by the composer Maurice Ohana.

Although Sergio de Castro eventually put music aside to devote himself to painting, he was still regularly invited to musical events. The Maillon cultural center (in Strasbourg), for example, exhibited a series of works during a musical week dedicated to Maurice Ohana and the music of the Hesperides in 1986. In the same year, Sergio de Castro was invited to the Festival des Musiques Actuelles Nice Côte d’Azur (the ‘MANCA’ Festival). In 1992, Silvina Luz Mansilla published the first volume of her Diccionario De La Musica Espanola E Hispanoamericana in Spain, which included a text on the musical work of Sergio de Castro.

THE ARTIST SERGIO DE CASTRO IN ARGENTINA
Sergio de Castro settled in Buenos Aires in 1942 and had his first exhibition at the Ateneo de Montevideo. His work was also exhibited at the Torres Garcia studio—an organisation founded in 1943 by the artist Joaquín Torres-García to enable young artists to access training. The following year, Sergio de Castro, Joaquín Torres-García and his students worked together on a series of murals for the Martirené Pavilion of the Saint Bois Hospital in Montevideo. Sergio de Castro took part in the group exhibition Pintura uruguaya, which was held at Comte Gallery in Buenos Aires, in the same year. In 1946, he travelled to the northwest of Argentina and the south of Peru to study pre-Columbian art, accompanied by the painters Gonzalo Fonseca, Julio Alpuy and Jonio Montiel.

Sergio de Castro moved back to Buenos Aires in 1947. The following year, he was presented at the Salon of the Santa Fe Museum of Fine Arts. His works were also presented at the Viao Gallery, the Bonino Gallery and the Van Riel Gallery. In 1987, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires organised a retrospective dedicated to the artist’s work, which presented some one hundred works.

THE ARTIST SERGIO DE CASTRO IN FRANCE
Sergio de Castro was awarded a grant by the French government in 1949 and settled permanently in Paris in November of the same year. In 1950, the artist was hospitalised due to severe asthma attacks at the Necker Hospital in Paris, where he spent much time drawing. The following year, he painted a monumental work in oil on canvas measuring 160 x 300 cm, which he called El Puerto. From then on, he retired from his activities as a composer to devote himself to painting and stained glass work. In 1952, Sergio de Castro had his first solo exhibition in Paris, at the Galerie Jeanne Castel, where he presented a collection of still lifes. Starting to paint with egg tempera, he went on to exhibit his works at the Galerie Pierre. He was also represented in the French capital by the Galerie Max Kaganovich, the Galerie Rive-Gauche and the Galerie Charpentier.

Sergio de Castro met many artists—such as Picasso, whom he met in Paris and in the South of France where he went in summer—and exhibited alongside Bazaine, Picasso, Lanskoy and de Staël. In 1953, Sergio de Castro set up his studio at 16 bis Rue du Saint-Gothard in Paris’ 14th arrondissement, where he began work on his large linear compositions.

The artist became a naturalised French citizen in 1979 and was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1999. In 2003, he made preparations for a donation of works to the Museum of Saint-Lô (Normandy) with the curator Michel Carduner. In 2006, the entire donation (comprising 220 works) was presented to the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Histoire in Saint-Lô.

STAINED GLASS IN SERGIO DE CASTRO’S WORK
Sergio de Castro was a multi-faceted artist. In addition to paintings and music, he also created a number of stained glass works. In 1956, Sergio de Castro began work on a monumental stained-glass work entitled La Création du Monde [The Creation of the World]. Measuring 6 x 20 metres, the work was designed for the church of the Benedictine Monastery of Saint-Sacrement in Couvrechef-la-Folie, near Caen—a building rebuilt after the war. In 1968, he created a 4.5 x 17 metre stained glass window for the 1st Lutheran Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Kirche in Hamburg. In 1979, Sergio de Castro began work on the composition of five stained glass windows for the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption in Romont, Fribourg (Switzerland), which were installed two years later. In 1980, he was invited to the 1st Salon of Stained Glass at the International Stained-Glass Centre in Chartres, France, where he presented Résurrection, a stained glass work measuring 4.2 x 1.2 metres.

The 1st Festival of Contemporary Sacred Art presented an exhibition dedicated to Sergio de Castro with 72 works from 1948-1978 on religious subjects at the Musée Diocésain d’Art Religieux in 1988. In the book Les Trésors de la France, published in 1988, the author Michel Parent wrote two texts in the section on “Contemporary Stained Glass”, entitled Audincourt et Fernand Léger and La Folie-Couvrechef et Sergio de Castro. In 2008, the Saint-Lô Museum presented the exhibition 50 ans d’Art du Vitrail autour de Sergio de Castro and then inaugurated the stained glass windows Abécédaire and Chiffres in 2012.

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR THE ARTIST SERGIO DE CASTRO
Several retrospectives have been devoted to the artist in many countries. Sergio de Castro went to the United Kingdom for the first time in 1957 and had his first solo exhibition in London at the Matthiesen Gallery the following year. In 1962, the editor of Apollo magazine, Denys Sutton, organised an exhibition of his work at the Leicester Gallery before publishing a monograph on Sergio de Castro in 1964. A solo exhibition of the artist’s work entitled Homages and Variations was presented at the French Institute in London in 1987, exhibiting 30 works from 1957-1975 inspired by Dürer, Holbein, El Greco and Vermeer.

Sergio de Castro also had strong ties to Switzerland, his childhood home. His work was presented in 1958 in Lucerne at the Kunst-Museum in a group exhibition entitled Junge Maler aus Deutschland und Frankreich. In 1966, the artist was presented in a major retrospective exhibition at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Fribourg, where 103 of the artist’s works were shown. A solo exhibition of Sergio de Castro’s work was organised at the Castle of Gruyères in 2008.

Sergio de Castro’s work also became well known in Germany, where it was featured at the Documenta II exhibition in Kassel in 1959. Hans Platte organised the first retrospective of Sergio de Castro’s work in an exhibition comprising 110 works at the Kunstverein in Hamburg in 1965. The following year, the exhibition Variationnen über ein Thema organised by Thomas Grochowiak at the Städtische Kunsthalle in Recklinghausen presented eight variations on Le Greco by Sergio de Castro. The exhibition would include works by Francis Bacon, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, among others.

In Italy, Sergio de Castro participated in the Biennale Francia-Italia at the Palazzo delle Arte al Valentino in Turin in 1956. The gallery owner Bruno Lorenzelli then presented 40 works by the artist in Milan in 1963 and in Bergamo in 1964. In 1980, Sergio de Castro participated in the 39th Venice Biennale, where he presented large-format works from the 1970s in the Argentine Pavilion.

Sergio de Castro was also exhibited in the United States. In 1960, the artist won the fourth prize in the Fifth International Hallmark Art Award alongside the painters Alechinsky, Marsicano and Charchoune. In 1995, he participated in a group exhibition at the Chac-Mool Gallery in Los Angeles.

Sergio de Castro died in Paris on 31 December 2012. He was laid to rest in the Montparnasse cemetery.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Amsterdam, Fondation Peter Stuyvesant
Auxerre, Saint-Georges-sur-Baulche, Bibliothèque de l’Yonne
Berne, Bibliothèque Nationale Suisse, Fonds Georges Borgeaud
Brême, Kunsthalle
Caen, Monastère des Bénédictines du Saint Sacrement de Couvrechef –La Folie
Hambourg, Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Kirche
La Défense, Hall d’accueil de la société Atochem
Luxembourg, Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art
Montevideo, Pavillon Martirené de l’hôpital Saint-Bois
Paris, Centre national des arts plastiques
Paris, Fond National d’Art Contemporain
Romont, Fribourg, Collégiale Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption
Saint-Lô, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Sélestat, Frac Alsace
Vienne, Mumok
Vienne, Museum des 20 Jahrhunderts

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Taller Torres-Garcia, exposition collective, Ateneo de Montevideo, tous les ans de 1942 à 1949
Pintura Uraguaya, exposition collective, Galerie Comte, Buenos Aires, 1944
Augusto y Horacio Torres-garcia, Sergio de Castro, Jonio Montiel, exposition collective, Galeria Viau, Buenos Aires, 1947
Donation de los Santos, exposition collective, Museo provencial de Bellas Artes, Sante Fe, 1948
Concours Air France, exposition collective, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1951
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Jeanne Castel, Paris, 1952
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Bonino, Buenos Aires, 1952, 1956
Prix Buhrle, exposition collective, Galerie Kaganovitch, Paris, 1953
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Pierre (Pierre Loeb), Paris, 1954
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Van Riel, Buenos Aires, 1955
Dibujos de artistas argentinos, exposition collective, Galeria Bonino, Buenos Aires, 1955
Peintres contemporains présentés par René de Soliers, exposition collective, Centre Culturel International, Cerisy-La–Salle, 1955
Expositions collectives, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961
Expositions collectives, Galerie Rive-gauche, Paris, 1955, 1958
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Rive-Gauche, Paris, 1956
Art Contemporain, exposition collective, Château d’Harcourt, Chauvigny, 1956
Sélectionnés de la Critique, exposition collective, Galerie Saint-Placide, Paris, 1956
Biennale Francia-Italia, Palazzo delle Arti al Valentino, Turin, 1957, 1959
Junge maler aus Deutschland und Frankreich, Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, 1958
Expositions personnelles, Matthiesen Gallery, Londres, 1958, 1961
Exposition collective, John Moore Foundation, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1959
Documenta II, Cassel, 1959
Peintres et Sculpteurs Argentins, exposition collective, Comité France-Amérique, Grand Palais, Paris, 1959
Recent Acquisitions, exposition collective, Arts Council, Londres, 1959
5th International Hallmark Art Award, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, 1960
Exposition collective, Sesquicentenario, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, 1960
Art Sacré, exposition collective, Musée d’Art moderne de Paris, 1960
Arte Argentina Contemporanea, Museum de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, 1961
Expositions collectives, Leicester Gallery, Londres, 1962, 1963
Expositions personnelles, Galeria Lorenzelli, Milan, 1963, 1964
Art Argentin actuel, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 1963
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Bettie Thommen, Bâle, 1964
Rétrospective, Kunsteverein (110 oeuvres de 1955 à 1965), Hambourg, 1965
Art Contemporain, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 1965
Artes Visuales I, Museo Eduardo Sivori, Buenos Aires, 1965
Natures-Mortes, exposition collective, Obere Zaune Galerie, Zurich, 1965
Variationen über ein Thema, Städtische Kunsthalle, Recklinghausen, 1966
Rétrospective, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire (103 oeuvres de 1955 à 1966), Fribourg, 1966
Von Bauhaus bis zum Gegenwart, Kunsthalle, Hambourg, 1967
Zauberdes Lichtes, Städischeee Kunsthalle, Recklinghausen, 1967
De Lautrec à Matthieu, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Fribourg, 1968

Rétrospective itinérante (45 oeuvres de 1961 à 1966), Kunstforening – Holstebrö, Kunstforening
Oslo et Kunstindustrimuseet, Copenhague,1970
Racolta Pomini, exposition collective, Galeria Il Milione, Milan, 1970
Castro Landscape of Light, exposition personnelle, Wildenstein Gallery, Londres, 1972
Expositions personnelles, Galerie Jacob, Paris, 1972, 1974
Exposition personnelle, Château de Ville-d’Avray, 1973
Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, 1973, 1974
Expositions collectives, Galerie Jacob, Paris, 1973, 1996
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Monique Delcourt, Valenciennes, 1974
Foire de la Peinture, Düsseldorf, 1974
Exposition personnelle, Centre Culturel Français, Luxembourg, 1975

Rétrospective itinérante (91 oeuvres de 1965 à 1975), Kunsthalle de Brême, Tempelhof de Berlin et Kunstamt (Festival de Berlin), 1975
Rétrospective (68 oeuvres de 1956 à 1966), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen, 1975-76
Signe du Sacré au XXe siècle, exposition collective, Église Saint-Philibert, Dijon, 1977
Typographie-Écritures, exposition collective, Maison de la Culture, Rennes, 1978
Exposition collective, FRAC Alsace, Strasbourg, 1978
Le Regard du Peintre, exposition collective, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1978-79
Exposition personnelle, Galerie Valmay, Paris, 1979
Hommage à Pierre Loeb, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 1979
1er Salon du Vitrail, Centre International du Vitrail, Chartres, 1980
Exposition personnelle, Association « Syn-Art », Paris, 1980
Rétrospective (12 oeuvres de grand format des années 1970), XXXIX Biennale, Pavillon de l’Argentine, Venise, 1980
Rétrospective (100 oeuvres de 1940 à 1974) Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, 1987
Sergio de Castro à Atochem, exposition personnelle, Paris La Défense, 1987
Exposition personnelle, French Institute, Londres, 1987
Expositions personnelles, Galerie des Ambassades, Paris, 1988, 1989
Expositions personnelles, Galerie Galarté, Paris, 1988, 1995
Rétrospective (sujets religieux 1948- 1978), 1er Festival d’Art sacré contemporain, Musée diocésain d’Art Religieux, Bayeux, 1988
Rétrospective (48 oeuvres de 1972 à 1978), Hôtel de Ville, Sochaux, 1991
Donation Castro, exposition personnelle, Musée Suisse du Vitrail, Romont, 1991-92
Renaissance d’une Ville, Musée de Normandie, Caen, 1994
Artistas latino amaricanos en sus estudio, exposition collective, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico, 1994
Exposition collective, Chac Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, 1995-96
Exposition personnelle, Galería Sur, Punta del Este (Uruguay), 1998
Salon d’Automne, Paris, 1999
Torres-Garcia et ses disciples, exposition collective, Galerie Ileana Bouboulis, Paris, 2002
Donation Castro, exposition personnelle, Musée de Saint-Lô, 2006-07
Exposition personnelle, Château de Gruyère (Suisse), 2008
50 ans de vitrail autour de Sergio de Castro, exposition collective, Musée de Saint-Lô, 2008-09
Exposition personnelle, Museo Gurvich, Montevideo, 2009
Francine Del Pierre et Sergio de Castro, exposition collective, Atelier Francine Del Pierre et Fance Franck, Paris, 2010
Mujeres esculturas – Varones pintores, exposition collective, Galerie Argentine, Paris, 2013
Hommage à Sergio de Castro, exposition collective, Galerie Orsay, Paris, 2013
Rayuela, el Parîs de Cortazar, exposition collective, Institut Cervantes, Paris, 2013
De l’Impressionnisme à l’abstraction. Festival Normandie Impressionniste, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Saint-Lô, 2013
Hommage à Jacques Thuillier, un historien d’art à Nevers, exposition collective, Musée de la Faïence et Médiathèque, Nevers, 2014
Otros cielos, exposition collective, Museo de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires, 2014
Le vitrail contemporain de 1945 à nos jours, exposition collective, Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris, 2015
Sergio de Castro, Figures et lignes, Galerie Diane de Polignac, Paris, 2022
Sergio de Castro, Les choses simples, Galerie Diane de Polignac, Paris, 2023

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jean Bouret, « À la découverte de Sergio de Castro », Art Paris, 1951
Pierre Descargues, « Sergio de Castro, 2 visages ? », Les Lettres Françaises, Paris, 1952
Julio E Payro, Sergio de Castro, Catalogue de l’exposition de la Galeria Bonino, Buenos Aires, 1952
Franck Elgar Carrefour, Sergio de Castro, 1954
André Chastel, « Un jeune peintre Sergio de Castro », Le Monde, 1954
Jean Bouret, « Les Constellations de Castro », Franc-Tireur, Paris, 1954
René de Solier, « Sergio de Castro », Nouvelle Revue Française, 1956
Cordoba-Iturburu, « Personnalité et raffinement chez Sergio de Castro », El Hogar, Buenos Aires, 1956
Mujica Lainez, « El refinamiento de Sergio de Castro », La Nacion, Buenos Aires, 1956
Denys Sutton, « Sergio de Castro », Apollo, Londres, N°394, décembre 1957
Denys Sutton, Sergio de Castro, Musée de Poche, Edition Fall, 1964
Hans Platte, « Sergio de Castro », catalogue de l’exposition Sergio de Castro 1955-1965, Kunstverein de Hambourg, 1965
Arnold Kohler, « L’univers particulier de Sergio de Castro », La Tribune de Genève, 1966
Denys Sutton, « Landscape of Light », catalogue de l’exposition Sergio de Castro, Landscape of light, Galerie Wildenstein, Londres, 1972
Claude Esteban, « Cosa mentale », catalogue de l’exposition Sergio de Castro, Galerie Jacob, Paris, 1972
Guy Weelen, Ceci regarde la peinture, catalogue d’exposition, Galerie Jacob, Paris, 1974
Antonio Bonet, « Correa Dualidad y Unitad en la obra de Sergio de Castro », Coloquio N° 21, Lisbonne, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 1975
Gunther Busch, Rétrospective Sergio de Castro, 1965 – 1975, catalogue d’exposition, Kunsthalle, Brême, 1975
Hans Platte, « Sergio de Castro », catalogue de l’exposition Sergio de Castro, Musée de Caen, 1975-76
Collectif sous la direction Michel Laclotte, Petit Larousse de la Peinture, 1979
Jean-Marie Dunoyer, « Forme : Permanence et métamorphose du visible », Le Monde, 1979
Lydia Harambourg, L’École de Paris 1945-1965 Dictionnaire des peintres, Éditions Ides et Calendes, 1983

Georges Borgeaud, « L’œuvre de Sergio de Castro », Revue Lyra, N°250/251, Buenos Aires, 1983
Jacques Thuillier, Les Prophètes, Editiones El Viso, 1984
Etienne Chatton, Nouveaux signes du sacré, Coédition Loisir et Pédagogie, Lausanne, Fragnière, Fribourg, 1986
Denis Lavalle, « Sergio de Castro à Bayeux », catalogue de l’exposition Sergio de Castro, sujets religieux 1948 – 1978, 1er Festival d’Art sacré contemporain de Bayeux, 1988
Dora Vallier, « L’œil écoute », catalogue de l’exposition Sergio de Castro, Natures – Mortes 1958-1965, Galerie des Ambassades, Paris, 1988
Jean Dominique Rey, « L’atelier du Saint-Gothard », catalogue de l’exposition Sergio de Castro, Les Ateliers 1958 – 1969, Galerie des Ambassades, Paris, 1989
« Entretien de Jean-Dominique Rey avec Sergio de Castro », exposition Sergio de Castro 1972 – 1978, Hôtel de Ville de Sochaux, 1991
Roger Munier, « TERRE ARDENTE », Voir Paris, Deyrolle Éditeur, 1993
Marie-Pierre Colle, « Corcuera Sergio de Castro », Artistas latinos-americanos en sus studios, Noriega Editores, Mexico, 1994
Jacques Thuillier, Histoire de l’Art, Flammarion, 2002
Collectif, Sergio de Castro Soixante ans de création 1944 – 2004, Éditions Somogy et Musée des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Lô, 2006
Lydia Harambourg, « SERGIO DE CASTRO », textes rassemblés autour de J. Thuillier, Édition Somogy, 2006
Collectif, Sergio de Castro, catalogue d’exposition, Musée de Saint-Lô, 2007
Silvia Listur, Sergio de Castro, catalogue exposition, Museo Gurvich, Montevideo, 2009
Christina Rossi, « Sergio de Castro », Revue Pagina 12, Montevideo, 2009
Gianni Burattoni, « De la peinture retrouvée à la peinture transformée », exposition Francine Del Pierre, Sergio de Castro, Atelier Del Pierre- Franck, Paris, 2010
Michel Hérold, Véronique David (dir.), Vitrail Ve – XXIe siècle, Paris, Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Éditions du Patrimoine, 2014
Sergio de Castro, Figures et lignes, cat. exp., Galerie Diane de Polignac, Paris, 2022
Isabelle Leroy-Jay, « Les choses simples » in cat. exp., Sergio de Castro, Les choses simples, Galerie Diane de Polignac, Paris, 2023

Sergio de Castro
L’ATELIER
Exhibition from January 16 to February 28, 2025

Diane de Polignac Gallery
2 bis, rue de Gribeauval, Paris
www.dianedepolignac.com

Translation: Lucy Johnston
Graphic design: Diane de Polignac Gallery
Texts are author’s property

ISBN: 978-2-9584349-8-4
© Diane de Polignac Gallery, Paris, 2025
Texts are author’s property