77. (249 Lafayette Street, 57th Street)

At the age of 38 an Argentinian artist who has abandoned a law career to become a painter moves to New York City where he rents a studio in Little Italy and supports himself by working as a waiter at the Caffe Figaro on Bleecker Street. That same year he is given his debut solo show in the city and moves to a new studio at 248 Lafayette Street. The following year he starts leaving the fronts of his paintings solid white and applying color only to the sides, a device that energizes his work. When he shows one of his first “sides only” paintings at a 57th Street gallery, an art critic who visits the show climbs onto a chair to see if the top edge of work has also been painted. (It has.)

(César Paternosto, Harris Rosenstein)