Museo Moderno
Gutiérrez Emilia
Serenidad, 1968. Oil on canvas. 70 x 50 cm.

The entirety of her body of work in painting is carried out in a period of 10 years: from 1965 to 1975 and it is there where she has 7 solo exhibitions: 5 of painting and 2 of drawings and paintings. She exhibits in the Van Riel and Lirolay galleries, a few blocks away from the Di Tella Institute, completely oblivious to the conceptual, pop and neo-figurative trends of the moment. Under the recommendation of his psychiatrist, in 1975 she gave up painting and devoted herself exclusively to drawing because “colors spoke to her”.
When facing a work I find myself in a special state, which is not easy to achieve. It is my way of feeling. They are exaltations of form. When Goya, El Greco, and the Flemish painters made high-flying distortions, they were subconscious products. I prefer loneliness and its mysteries; although I think that the crowd has also its enigmas and that it is good to communicate with those around us.”
In the words of Rafael Cippolini, curator of her anthological exhibition in Colección Fortabat 2023: “…Everything in Emilia is intimate. Even her marvelous anachronism, which with her work reached a new flight in the sky of Argentine art. Ways of dressing, of living, styles, influences, nothing stops mixing in a past general tone. Her personality commands: what she wants she shows in silence.”