Jorge de la Vega (27 March 1930 – 26 August 1971) was an Argentine painter, graphic artist, draftsman, singer, and songwriter.

In the final years of his career and life he wrote and sang popular protest songs which expressed his humorous view of the world.

From about 1948 to 1952 he studied architecture at the Universidad de Buenos Aires before quitting to pursue his true passion: art.

But with much sense of humor, with a great desire for health, for clean air, he overcame it; he redefined himself, through his constant method of turning things around.

He explored many styles (including Geometric Abstraction and Realism before joining the Otra Figuración group in the early 1960s.

De la Vega received a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at Cornell University in 1965 and worked there as a visiting professor and artist.

The group was founded in 1961 as a reaction against the dominant tradition of Argentine geometric abstraction during that period [2] and consisted of four men: Jorge de la Vega, Luis Felipe Noé, Rómulo Macció, and Ernesto Diera.

[4] Many of their artworks not only showed ideas from their personal psyches, but also their political views and general critiques of society; "the group's emblematic whale thus stands for spontaneity, creativity, and risk; in other words, all the qualities that capitalism took away from art.

Here they planned how they would create new forms of art and acted as creative influences to each other in their close proximity, de la Vega and Noé living together, and Diera and Macció sharing a studio.

Luis Felipe Noé described this best in the preface to the exhibition's catalogue, saying: When I say otra figuración, I don't mean a reciprocated figuration.

The figure, as it always was, must be looked at as it never has been before, taking into account the ever-changing social, economical, and political contexts of Argentina and Latin America as a whole.

A brief look at the different stylistic phases of de la Vega's artwork throughout his career (see below for example paintings).

Creo que, en pintura, el tema es sólo un pretexto para lo que uno quiere decir.

The paintings in this period used muted colors and often featured close-up views of detailed human faces with obvious emotions.

(Gradually, I structured the image in an increasingly geometric way to strip down my work of all contact with physical visual reality, seeking to find new modes of relations in the domain of colors, textures and forms.)"

"No fui exactamente yo quien introdujo figuras humanas en mi pintura; creo que fueron ellas mismas las que me utilizaron para inventarse; no fue una imposición involuntaria sino un encuentro natural y ahora no podría prescindir de ellas sin sentir cercenada mi voluntad expresiva.

(It was not exactly me who introduced human figures in my painting, I think it was they themselves who used me to invent themselves, it was not an involuntary imposition but a natural meeting and now I could not do without them without feeling my expressive will severed.)"

[7] This phase characterized the early years of de la Vega's work with Luis Felipe Noé, Rómulo Macció, and Ernesto Diera (see Otra Figuración section above).

[7] This style was characterized by the use of nontraditional techniques such as collage and assemblage to create "beastlike" figures which de la Vega called "Esquizobestias (schizobeasts)" or "Conflíctos anamórficos (anamorphic conflicts)".

En Nueva York cambié la temática: adiós a las figuras mitológicas y búsqueda del hombre.

Norteamérica es un mundo tan poderoso y artificial que por contraste el hombre adquiere relieve.

[7] Upon moving to the United States for several years in the mid-1960s, de la Vega was greatly influenced by the Pop Art movement in New York City.

In this phase, he strayed dramatically from his usual figurative style and began to attach faces from television, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and other forms of popular media to "fluidly deformed bodies which entangled and intermeshed".

Two great examples of his work at this time of life are "Proximidad (Proximity)" and "El gusanito en persona (the little worm in person)".

Let us unite and unify, let us combine and join ourselves, and blend together, let us gather and bind and collect ourselves, let us ally and link ourselves, let us reconcile and couple, adhere amalgamate, and shuffle, let us be screwed, steeped, and inserted, intertwined, intermingled and interwoven.

My mate: my companion, consistent, inseparable, conniving, confusing, approximate, converging, juxtaposed and adjacent, bordering and inherent, inclusive, included and subsequent: imagine how much people could do if the dictionary were less imposing.

Then one fine day he got so fed up with the enigma drawn that he started pulling at it and rolled up the lines into a ball that he used to have a simple suit woven on a loom.

Lyrics from "El gusanito en persona," included in his Olympia record Jorge de la Vega canta sus canciones, whose cover dressed the walls of Galería Bonino in its presentation (Buenos Aires, October 16–31, 1968).

(Bestiario phase) El día ilustrísimo, 1964, técnica mixta s/ tela (mixed media on canvas), 249,55 x 199,5 cm.