Juan Nicolás Melé (1923 – 2012) was an Argentine artist. At the age of 11 he began studying drawing and painting with Enrique Rodríguez. He began his education at the “Manuel Belgrano” School of Fine Arts (with his friends, the artists Gregorio Vardanega and Tomás Maldonado) and later at the “Prilidiano Pueyrredon” National School of Fine Arts.

Upon finishing his studies, he came into contact with the Arte Concreto Invencion association formed by Alfredo Hlito, Lidy Prati, Manuel Espinosa, Enio Iommi, the Lozza brothers, Tomás Maldonado, Alberto Molenberg, Claudio Girola, Jorge Souza, Antonio Caraduje, Oscar Nunez, Virgilio Villalba y Contreras, with whom he participated in the group’s third exhibition, in October 1946.

The French government gave him a scholarship, with which he attended L’École du Louvre between 1948 and 1949. He exhibited in Italy, where he came into contact with members of the Béton group from Milan. In Switzerland he comes into contact with Max Bill and, in Paris, with Michel Seuphor.

In 1950, back in Argentina, he continued working in art as a teacher of History of Arts at the National School of Fine Arts. In 1955 he co-founded the group Arte Nuevo directed by Aldo Pellegrini and Carmelo Arden-Quin and counting among its members Martha Boto, Simona Ertan, Eduardo Jonquieres and Gregorio Vardanega.

In 1974 he settled in New York where he worked and exhibited at the Caïman Gallery (1978) and at the Arco Gallery (1983 – 1985). In 1981 he exhibited at the “Eduardo Sívori” Museum in Buenos Aires. In 1986, he returned to Argentina and a year later he organized an individual exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

He received the Alberto J. Trabucco award in 1997, awarded by the National Academy of Fine Arts. He edits a book with his memoirs, La vanguard del ’40. Memoirs of a specific artist, published in 1999.

He passed away in 2012, at the age of eighty-eight.