Julio Vanzo

Who was Julio Vanzo?

Julio Vanzo was an artist born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. He descended from a family of artists of the Austrian Tyrol.

Vanzo presented his first exhibition in 1919, at the inauguration of the Witcomb Gallery in Rosario. In 1941 he was invited to a joint exhibition that featured Lucio Fontana, Domingo Candia and Emilio Pettorutti at the Riverside Gallery of New York City, and in 1945 he participated in the contest for a Guggenheim scholarship. In 1953 he authored a series of zincography prints based on the theme of the Argentine national gauchesque poem Martín Fierro, which were also exhibited in New York. During his last years he shifted to the topic of tango culture.

Vanzo was a collaborator of the art and literature magazine La Gaceta del Sur and the first secretary of the Juan B. Castagnino Fine Arts Museum.

Vanzo drew a sketch of the coat of arms for Rosario, his hometown, based on a previous version created by councilman Eudoro Carrasco in 1862 and modified by architect Ángel Guido in 1957. The Deliberative Council of Rosario adopted Vanzo's new coat of arms for the city on 1964-11-24. An updated version was found in 2001 in Vanzo's home archives, where some items have been added or modernized.