Enrique MacGrech [1890-1969]
South America [possibly Argentina]
The race car, 1908
Oil on board
6-1/2 x 9 inches [unframed]
Signed and dated at lower right: ‘[illegible]’.

CONDITION:
Good condition, minor board lose on edges.

DESCRIPTION:
This painting may depict an early car and race of Italian-born, Argentine car driver, Giuseppe Fangio (1881-1919), who emigrated to Buenos Aires from Italy in 1887. Giuseppe managed to buy his own farm near Balcarce, a small city in southern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, within three years by making charcoal from tree branches. Giuseppe brought his family, with his 7-year son, Loreto, later to become another famous race driver in his own right, to Argentina from the small central Italian town of Castiglione Messer Marino in the Chieti province of the Abruzzo region. Guiseppe married Herminia Déramo, who was from Tornareccio.  Fangio married in October, 1903, and lived on farms, where his wife, Herminia, was a housekeeper and Loreto worked in the building trade, becoming an apprentice stonemason.  As a family that made drawing charcoal, they may have known several important Argentine artists, one whom may have been the painter of this panel.

PROVENANCE:
2021 ( David Smernoff, New Haven, CT & New York, NY ) ;
1908 [unattributed], the artist .

EXHIBITION:
[unknown] ;