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Caras y Caretas

  • Caras y Caretas was one of the widest read magazines in Buenos Aires. A collective venture, run largely by exiles, it renewed the public press through an attractive layout.
  • Magazine
  • Caras y Caretas

    Word Count: 3

  • Faces and Masks
  • 08-10-1898
  • 17-10-1939
  • Printed magazine

  • Calle Bolivar 578 to 586, Buenos Aires (editorial office).

  • Spanish
  • 25 cm

  • Buenos Aires (AR)
  • Caras y Caretas was one of the widest read magazines in Buenos Aires. A collective venture, run largely by exiles, it renewed the public press through an attractive layout.

    Word Count: 29

  • At the beginning of the 20th century Caras y Caretas (Faces and Masks) was one of the most widely-read magazines in Buenos Aires. A collective venture, run mostly by exiles, it was dedicated to the Argentinian context as well to European traditions.
    The magazine was founded and led mainly by Spanish artists who had recently migrated to Argentina. Most of those involved were either related to one another or already friends. This bears witness to the extensive network of the local Spanish community, with its many connections that provided help to newcomers.
    Caras y Caretas was founded by Eustaquio Pellicer in October 1898. Pellicer was a journalist who had left Spain for Montevideo (Uruguay), at the age of 27, in 1886, before moving to Buenos Aires in 1892. In Argentina, he joined the network of Spanish migrants. There, he found most of his collaborators, such as the artists  artists Francisco Fortuny, Manuel Mayol, José María Cao, Felipe Barrantes, Ramon de Castro Ribera and Arturo Eusevi. Most of them had studied fine arts before arriving in Argentina and, thanks to the Spanish network, were able to start contributing to various journals soon after their arrival. Like Pellicer, Mayol and Cao, there were many Europeans on the staff, among them Lasso de la Vega, Eusevi, Lorente, Daireaux, Grandmontagne, Bernárdez, and Soussens. Laass, the director of the paper's publishing company, and Berger, the chief lithographer, were German.
    Throughout the magazine's pages, writers and illustrators dealt with issues of cosmopolitanism, the interchange of ideas, sharing and differences, in a country where, at the beginning of the 20th century, one in four people was a European immigrant. Caras y Caretas reflected this situation, for example by addressing the language issue. Argentine Spanish was flexible and constantly changing as it adopted foreign words, a development criticised by purists who struggled to keep the language unadulterated. Many of the articles were peppered with Italian, German or French words that had been integrated into the urban language. Also, many advertisements were written in foreign languages and the local people could perfectly understand them. The mixture of nationalities was also visible in the illustrations and pictures that appeared. One example is an image showing a German man, Herr Hünlich, dressed as a gaucho, wearing the traditional clothing of the Argentine countryside (Anonymous 1901). The magazine assumed the paradoxical character of an Argentine identity containing within it an immigrant component.

    Word Count: 398

  • José María Cao (signed), Caras y Caretas, no. 516, 22 August 1908 (via Wikimedia Commons).
  • "Viajero alemán en traje de gaucho recorriendo el territorio." Caras y Caretas, no. 164, 23 November 1901.
    "Las grandes catástrofes." Cover of Caras y Caretas, no. 544, 6 March 1909.
    Francisco Fortuny and Ramón de Castro Rivera, "Una escena de la Revolución de Mayo." Caras y Caretas, no. 34, 25 May 1899.
  • Bockelman, Brian. “Bohemians, Anarchists, and Arrabales: How Spanish Graphic Artists Reinvented the Visual Landscape of Buenos Aires, 1880–1920.” Arrival Cities. Migrating Artists and New Metropolitan Topographies in the 20th Century, edited by Burcu Dogramaci et al., Leuven University Press, 2020, pp. 353–370. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv16qk3nf.21. Accessed 23 April 2021.

    Szir, Sandra M. “Entre el arte y la cultura masiva. Las ilustraciones de la ficción literaria en Caras y Caretas (1898–1908).” Impresiones porteñas: imagen y palabra en la historia cultural de Buenos Aires, edited by Laura Malosetti Costa and Marcela Gené, Edhasa, 2009, pp. 109–140.

    Szir, Sandra M. “Representaciones del arte y otras formas culturales en la intermedialidad de Caras y Caretas.” I Jornadas Internacionales de Estudios sobre Revistas Culturales Latinoamericanas. Ficciones metropolitanas: revistas y redes internacionales en la modernidad artística latinoamericana, Espigas, 2017, www.revistasdeartelatinoamericano.org/items/show/65. Accessed 14 April 2021.

    Word Count: 140

  • Anonymous. “Nahuel Huapi. Comarca en que se hallan los caminos recién abiertos por Chile.” Caras y Caretas, no. 164, 23 November 190, n.p. [pp. 39–40]. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Hemeroteca Digital, http://hemerotecadigital.bne.es/issue.vm?id=0004125821&search=&lang=es. Accessed 21 April 2021.

    Word Count: 45

  • Laura Karp Lugo
  • Buenos Aires
  • No
  • Laura Karp Lugo. "Caras y Caretas." METROMOD Archive, 2021, https://archive.metromod.net/viewer.p/69/2950/object/5140-9031959, last modified: 12-05-2021.
  • José Maria Cao
    CartoonistIllustratorGraphic Artist
    Buenos Aires

    “Master of the pencil and the pen”, Galician artist José María Cao became one of the most relevant illustrators of Buenos Aires press by the beginning of the twentieth century.

    Word Count: 31

    Francisco Fortuny Masagué
    PainterIllustratorGraphic Artist
    Buenos Aires

    Spanish-born Francisco Fortuny migrated to Buenos Aires in 1887. His most renowned work was done as illustrator in printed magazines such as Caras y Caretas.

    Word Count: 24