(San Fernando, Argentina, 1887 - Tigre, Argentina, 1963)

Xul Solar is the nome de plume of Argentinean artist Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari, which was formed of the merging of phonetic elements of his last name and mystical tenets.

With a career spanning several decades, Solar developed a distinctive artistic style marked by a fusion of spiritualism with phantasmagoric imageries. His early works were influenced by European avant-garde movements and esoteric concepts of Theosophy and the Golden Down, to which he was acquainted with while living in Europe between the First World War and the end of the conflict. He later forged a distinctive pictorial language through exquisite small-scale watercolors of cityscapes and landscapes peppered with fantastic creatures, incorporating mystical symbols and signs that became a signature for his work. In 1924, he returned to Buenos Aires where he established his practice as painter, translator and astrologer and became a member of the Martin Fierro avant-garde group.

A close friend of Jorge Luis and Norah Borges, he created the artificial languages “Neocriollo” and “Panlengua,” demonstrating exceptional linguistic abilities and an interest in international communication. Additionally, he designed musical instruments based on both linguistic and esoteric research, and the board game “Panajedrez,” based on rules dictated by his creative semiotic experiments.

Solar’s seminal legacy as a multidisciplinary artist and inventor highlights his significant contributions to the cultural landscape of Latin America in the twentieth century.