The San Diego Union-Tribune, North Coast,
Oct. 9, 2002; California, USA
by Kelly O'Connor


"Endless Summer"
Del Mar--For the past five years, Earth Song Bookstore has doubled as an art gallery. Artists from all over San Diego County have exhibited paintings from abstracts to local landscaes at the shop on Camino del Mar.

The latest artwork of Alfredo Antognini depicts people lounging at the beach, walking on the boardwalk and gazing at the sea. Store owner Anne Mery said she chose the "La Playa" oil paintings of Antognini to make it an "endless summer" at the bookstore and gallery.

Mery first saw Antognini's work through photos in the Solana Beach based Decor and Style Magazine. She enjoyed the subtle humor she sensed in the work.

"There's something very playful about them," Mery said of Antognini's paintings. One that hangs above the cash register in her store is of a full-figure woman bending over at the waist and sticking her head through her legs. It's her favorite. She has nicknamed it "Peekaboo."

All of the "La Playa" paintings include people going about everyday beach acivities. Some appear to be fixing their hair and posing while others are walking dogs, reading or people watching. And although the figures resemble clay sculptures, their actions are very realistic. Antognini, who earned degrees in drwaing and painting from the National School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, said the "La Playa" paintings show people living the good life. "They are all worshiping the sun," he said.

Antognini also includes superhuman characters in his paintings. Icarus and Superman can be seen in the sky of one of his larger beach scenes. In tune with the Greek myth,  Icarus is falling into the sea after his artificial wings are melted by the sun. Antognini put his own modern-day spin on it by painting a flying Superman coming to the rescue.
In 1976, Antognini first came here from Argentina. And although he had painted nearly his entire life, he had never created beach scenes. After he realized how "beach oriented and beautiful" the people here are, that changed. Antognini soon incorporated this phenomenon into his work.

Mery tracked down Antognini after reading about him in the magazine. She was invited to his home and studio to see the paintings. Antognini's wife, Maricler, said it is not a house for entertaining. "We have a working home," she said. She loves to be surrounded by her husband's paintings.  Nearly all the wall space in their home is covered, from the front porch to the studio in the back yard.

After Mery visited the Antognini home, she knew the paintings would fit in well in her store. "You just fall in love with them," Mery said about the paintings and the Antogninis.
Antognini's works have been exhibited in Paris, Mexico City, Buenos Aires and La Jolla.

The "La Playa" exhibit will be on display at Earth Song, 1440 Camino del Mar, through mid-November."

Reviews and Articles:
From The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 9, 2002
From The San Diego Union-Tribune, April 11, 2002
From Decor & Style, March 2002
From El Cronista Comercial, July 23, 1990
From La Prensa; Semanario de Artes Visuales, July 29, 1990
From Artweek, August 23, 1986

Artweek
August 23, 1986; p.6, Los Angeles, California, USA
by Michael McManus


The Craft of Represention: Seven Southern California Painters (Excerpt)
"As tightly composed as mosaics, Antognini's sanguine still lifes of humble vegetables, fruits and stone pots have a firm lapidary rightness about them. It's clear that he's learned the lessons of Cézanne that energize Morandi's work. He seems never to have been infected, however, with that anomie of the object which Morandi termed 'plastic loneliness.' Antognini's objects inhabit a domestic plenum that is a bit abstract but basically hospitable. In Still Life with Cityscape (1986), the artist's fluid brushwork visually unifies the squashes and appies on  table top with a painting of a street scene which is propped behind them. The earth tones and blues are remarkably pleasing. Antognini is a painter who possesses and assured hand and an innocent eye."