Alfredo Antognini was born in Buenos Aires on September 20, 1938. After studying art and philosophy in Argentina, and art restoration in Mexico City, he moved to San Diego, where he now makes his home.

Of a solo exhibit, the San Diego Union-Tribune art critic wrote: "Antognini's influences are mostly modernist. There's a little bit of Balthus, the late Swiss painter, as well as a trace of Diego Rivera. But Antognini sublimates stylistic inspirations to a richer engagement with each subject." His couples doing the tango "seem to be under the spell of some powerful daydream. . . . his paintings of fruit and table-top arrangements have a palpable vitality. . . . Light is brighter in Antognini's beach scenes. Their subject matter is locally inspired, but the look is Continental -- incorporating everything from classical Greek art to the Picasso bathers of the 20s."

A recent new subject for Antognini is a series of paintings he calls "Las Sirvientas." These are memory paintings of the dark-skinned women who used to work in his family home and of similar women who sell themselves.

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