Van Riel, Frans

(Italy 1879-1950)

Photographer, painter and gallery owner, Van Riel settled in Buenos Aires in 1907 where he undertook an eclectic range of activities, from sketching cartoons for the daily newspaper La Prensa to painting portraits of Buenos Aires high society and leading figures from the art establishment. He was a painter trained in the academic style, the founder of the Augusta art magazine in 1918, the first of its kind. In 1924, he opened Argentina’s first art showroom, the famous Frans Van Riel Gallery.