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In march 1890 , a baby called Benito Juan Martin was abandoned at the door of Casa de los Expósitos Orphanage , in Barracas neighborhood in Buenos Aires . He spent his first six years there until he was adopted by an Italian Immigrant , Manuel Chinchella , who had opened a coal shop in La Boca before marrying Justina Molina . The child adopted the last name of his adoptive father in the Spanish from : Quinquela .
When he was a teenager he helped in the family coal warehouse . At the age of 17 , he enrolled at the conservatory to take courses of drafting and painting with the teacher Alfredo Lazzari , from whom he inherited a basic lesson : Freedom of expression in Art . His father obliged him to look for a “ decent ” job while his mother was
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more sensitive to the artistic vocation of her son .
As from 1910 , Quinquela Martín participated in some exhibitions and kept on painting landscapes , scenes from La Boca Port , Lezama Park , Palermo , and from Maciel Island . He felt more and more identified with the neighbourhood where he was raised , La Boca Port , The ships , the cranes , the cargos , and the neighbourhood that was the distinctive feature of his paintings .
He was discovered by Pío Collivadino , Director of the Academy of Fine Arts and told him : “ You may be the painter of La Boca and its Port . Here there ’ s a special atmosphere , character and strength .
Besides you have an original personality , a different way of seeing and painting things .”
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Quinquela Martín gave up the coal for good . He was invited to participate in local exhibitions , then in Brazil in 1920 , then in Spain in 1922 .
There , the Museum of Modern Art of Madrid bought two of his paintings .
President Marcelo T . de Alvear was a great admirer , so much that he visited the painter ’ s studio in La Boca .
He received a warm welcome at the circle of Fine Arts in Paris and the same happened in New York , Rome and London .
La Boca Pier where all the poor immigrants had arrived in the 1920s started to decorate the best museums and refined rooms . Workers carrying bags on their shoulders , old ships and the dusk were his most repeated scenes .
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of land and had a four-level house built so that they could open a primary school there , a museum for Argentine artists of figurative art , his own studio and residence . The Museum was called Benito Quinquela Martín .
The most visited street in La Boca was also created by Quinquela Martín : Caminito , one of the most beautiful postcards of Buenos Aires .
He had the great idea of refurbishing the abandoned railway and turning it into an open air Museum .
In the 1950s , the wooden and zink houses of the immigrants located there , were painted again with the lively colours that characterized the neighbouhood .
Quinquela Martín died in 1977 and he is undoubtedly one of the most popular artists from Argentina .
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