Fortunato Lacámera was born in Buenos Aires on October 5, 1887. He works for the Ferrocarril de Sur as a telegraph apprentice, where he resigns in 1912 to take art lessons with Alfredo Lazzari at the Sociedad Unión de la Boca. This is how his artistic training starts, while at the same time, he works as a house painter and interior designer.
As of 1919, he displays his work at the Salón Nacional and, later on, at the provincial and municipal show rooms. In 1922 he makes his first individual exhibition at the Galería Chandler, and he later does the same at the Asociación Amigos del Arte (1930); Salón Signo (1932); Galería Moody (1937); Salones de Arte del Banco Municipal (1940); Asociación Gente de Arte de Avellaneda (1942); Impulso (1943) and Galería Antú (1950).
In 1926, he takes part in the beginnings of Ateneo Popular de La Boca.
In 1929, he obtains the “Sociedad Estímulo de Bellas Artes” award; in 1936 he gets the Premio Acuarelistas de la Dirección Nacional de Bellas Artes award. In1939, he starts his teaching career at the Escuela Técnica de Oficios Nº 4.
In 1940, he founds the Agrupación de Gente de Artes y Letras Impulso, which he will preside until 1951, the year of his death. The following artists work along his side: Vicente Vento, José Luis Menghi, José Desiderio Rosso and the early participation of Miguel Carlos Victorica. The group begins its activities with an impressive collective exhibition where artists such as Quinquela Martín, Victorica, Diomede and Lacámera himself, display their work. Other artists who took part in these exhibits are Pettoruti, Centurión, Butler, Forner, Castagnino, Spilimbergo and Lucio Fontana.
In 1950, he receives the "Rosa Galisteo de Rodríguez" award from the Salón de Santa Fe and the "Eduardo Sívori" award from the Salón Nacional.
The artist dies on February 26, 1951, and a little afterwards, Impulso holds the first post-mortem exhibition of his work. The following year, the Teatro Iris in La Boca, places a commemorative plaque in his honor.
His art production forms part of important collective exhibitions made in this country, such as La pintura y escultura argentina en el siglo XX in 1952 and Ciento cincuenta años de arte argentino in 1960. Between August and September of 1978, the Galería Balmaceda de Buenos Aires holds the collective exhibition titled Homenaje a Fortunato Lacámera, where contemporary artists such as Luis Fernando Benedit, Víctor Grippo, Héctor Giuffré, Juan Pablo Renzi, Ileana Veggezi and Pablo Suárez, distinguish the artist through quotations and recreations of his paintings.
In 1987, in honor of his 100th year anniversary, Galerías Kramer, Rubbers, Vermeer and Wildenstein join together to show sixty five pieces of his work. Among the most recent exhibits dedicated to this artist we can point out the retrospective exhibition that the Centro Cultural Recoleta held in the year 2000.
His work is included in the patrimony of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes; Museo de Bellas Artes de La Boca “Benito Quinquela Martín”; Museo Municipal de Artes Plásticas "Eduardo Sívori" and the municipal museums of Tandil, Junín, Mar del Plata, Bahía Blanca and Rosario, and the Museo “Pedro de Mendoza” in Santa Fe and the Liceo Militar "Gral.San Martín" in the province of Buenos Aires.