Museum of Comic and Caricature

The emblem of the Severo Vaccaro Caricature Museum is the head of a donkey together with a king and it was created by the humorists and historian Siulnas.

The Caricature Museum started by chance at the beginning of the 20th century in the old bureau de change called Vaccaro at 600, Mayo Avenue. The friendship that bonded Severo Vaccaro and Eduardo Álvarez, a famous cartoonist, enabled the former to be surrounded by noted strip cartoonists of the time. That is how this story began and later became a museum.

The walls on Vaccaro's House were crowned with productions. These gained recognition with time and they turned the house into an important place for those who enjoyed caricatures.

Not until Severo's death, in the year 1945, did his brother have the bright idea of creating a museum where people would laugh. Buenos Aires humor would be an everyday occurrence with that collection of cartoons.

The display of original caricatures started to grow when the cartoonists as well as the people who have been caricatured began donating their work. After Vicente Vaccaro’s death the bureau de change was unfortunately demolished by age and all the material displayed there was transferred to the house owned by his father’s family, located at 2100, Estados Unidos Street.


Moving Out With a Lot of Humor

The capital headquarters at 1037, Lima Street, where the museum is currently housed, was opened in 1981 thanks to Luis Fernández Vaccaro (Chairman of the Severo Vaccaro's Foundation) and to the graphic humorist and historian Oscar Vázquez Lucio, better known as Siulnas. However, at the end of the 90’s, the economic crisis of the country made it necessary for the museum to close for three years. Marcelo Niño, as a researcher of graphic humor and comic strips, contributed to the reopening of this temple of humor.

The Museum reopened on December 18th, 2002, with the presence of 90 strip cartoonists, among them, Garaycochea, Dobal and Solano López. From then on, visitors can go around the six permanent display rooms in the Museum traveling through time since 1898 until today.

The ground floor contains rooms 1 to 3 in which works of the end of the XIX century to the 1960’s are displayed. Rooms 4 to 6, on the upper floor, are used to display the works from the 1960’s to present day.

Designs by Mayol and Eduardo Álvarez can be seen in the rooms among others with the original magazine covers of Caras y Caretas. Drawings by Divito, Faruk, Lino Palacio or more current cartoonists like Caloi, Quino and Landrú can be found.

The most important thing about this museum is that it is not inactive. Quite frequently there are tributes to the greatest masters of the Argentinian humor and there are workshops on comic strips, illustrations, caricatures, graphic humor and the novel manga (Japanese word that means "comic strip"). Through these workshops the younger generations give a new power to pencil and paper.