Our History

Rubbers by Natalio Jorge Povarché

In 1956, I decided to end my commercial activity in the paint store business and open my first art gallery: Galería Rubbers. The inauguration took place in 1957, one month after my marriage to Elena Montero Lacasa, who would take on the responsibility of sharing the management of the gallery with me.Rubbers grew rapidly, with a clear vision and a program that included names such as Xul Solar, Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Norah Borges, and Juan Batlle Planas. In 1960, the gallery moved to the historic Florida pedestrian street, where we organized exhibitions of artists such as Rogelio Polesello, Alfredo Hlito, Roberto Aizemberg, Omar Rayo, among others.

Coinciding with the program of the Instituto Di Tella, our Gallery became home to Antonio Berni’s “La Caverna de Ramona”. Also at the Di Tella, directed by Jorge Romero Brest, I organized the important exhibition “Surrealism in Argentina,” with the valuable collaboration of critic Aldo Pellegrini in the selection, and with the collaboration of Franz Van Riel. And, as an international event, the first exhibition of Andy Warhol in Argentina, in 1956, organized with his New York art dealer Leo Castelli.

The gallery was founded in 1957 by Natalio Jorge Povarché and Elena Montero Lacasa.

Beginning in 1998,I dedicated myself to the organization and realization of the Pan Klub Foundation, with the collaboration of Lita, Xul Solar’s widow. Also carrying out the construction of the Xul Solar Museum, directed from its beginnings by Elena Montero Lacasa de Povarché, with an architectural work awarded on different occasions in international competitions.And thus ad infinitum. Because it is true, and in this my years and experience coincide, there are no limits to art when the conditions are right; and Rubbers has been, and continues to be, a living example of this.

Because one should not be a witness to history, when possible, one must make it.