Carmen Herrera

Carmen Herrera
Born (1915-05-31) May 31, 1915
Havana, Cuba
Nationality Cuban-American
Known for Painting
Style Minimalism
Movement Abstract Expressionism

Carmen Herrera (born May 31, 1915) is a Cuban-American abstract, minimalist painter. She was born in Havana and has lived in New York City since the mid-1950s. Herrera's abstract works have brought her international recognition late in life. She turned 100 in May 2015.[1]

Early life

Born in Havana in 1915, Herrera was one of seven siblings. Her father was the founding editor of the newspaper El Mundo, where her mother was a reporter.[2] Herrera has lived in France, Cuba and the USA, moving frequently throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Returning to Cuba from Paris around 1935, Herrera studied architecture.[3][4] She met in 1939 English teacher Jesse Loewenthal, when he was visiting from America,[5] married him and moved to New York, abandoning her degree course.[4] From 1943-1947 she studied at the Art Students League in New York City.[6]

Abstract expressionism was blooming in late 1940s New York, which had become an art metropolis, but instead of taking advantage of that, Herrera moved to post war Paris. There she was inspired by the era of re-building after the war, and found her own style. Herrera got to know the young artists from Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, an art collective striving to challenge the traditions of the art scene. One of them, Fred Sidès, was enthusiastic about Herrera's work, and wanted it in an exhibition. But when he said that her art seemed to be full of so many images, Herrera had an insight. "I said to myself: Oh God, what he is telling me is that I have too much in it." From then on her work has always been a search from the greatest possible simplicity. Her art is about shapes and colour, and how they relate to each other.[7] In 1954 Herrera settled in New York.

Rondo by Carmen Herrera

Discovery by the art world

In 2004, her friend, painter Tony Bechara, attended a dinner with Frederico Sève, the owner of the Latin Collector Gallery in Manhattan, who had a much-publicized show of female geometric painters from which an artist had dropped out.[5] Bechara recommended Herrera.[5] When Sève saw her paintings, he at first thought they were by Lygia Clark, but found out that Herrera's paintings had been done a decade before Clark did paintings in a similar style.[5]

Work

Herrera's work has great precision and is highly reminiscent of Barnett Newman and Leon Polk Smith. She was a contemporary of many abstract expressionist artists - most notably, Wifredo Lam and Yves Klein[5] but since she painted in relative obscurity, remained unknown until her later years. Her works, viewed in light of the time period they were painted in, are important milestones in the evolution of the Geometric Minimalism movement. After six decades of private painting, Herrera sold her first artwork in 2004 when she was 89 years old.[5] Herrera has said of her work, “I do it because I have to do it; it’s a compulsion that also gives me pleasure.”[5]

Collections

In 2004 Agnes Gund, President emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art, bought several works by Herrera and donated one of her black-and-white paintings to Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).[5] The Tate Modern in London, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. have also acquired her works.

Exhibitions

Herrera exhibited several times at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles beginning in 1949.[8] Solo exhibitions were hosted at the Galeria Sudamericana (1956), Trabia Gallery (1963), Cisneros Gallery (1965) and Alternative Gallery (1986).[9] The El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem, New York, mounted an exhibition of Herrera's work in 2008. A retrospective exhibition opened in July 2009 at the nonprofit IKON Gallery in Birmingham, England, and travelled to the Pfalzgalerie Museum in Kaiserslautern, Germany in 2010. From 16 September 2016 Herrera will have her first museum retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.[10]

List of works

The following works are currently displayed at Lisson Gallery.

Film

Beginning in 2014, Alison Klayman, director of the acclaimed "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," worked on a documentary about Herrera.[12] This documentary, "'The 100 Years Show'," premiered in 2015 at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto.[13]

References

  1. ↑ Russeth, Andrew (2015-06-05). "'Don't Be Intimidated About Anything': Carmen Herrera at 100". ARTnews. Retrieved 2015-06-18.
  2. ↑ Helena de Bertodano (20 December 2010), Carmen Herrera: 'Is it a dream?' The Daily Telegraph.
  3. ↑ Hermione Hoby (21 November 2010), Carmen Herrera: 'Every painting has been a fight between the painting and me. I tend to win' The Guardian.
  4. 1 2 "Carmen Herrera 29 July — 13 September 2009". Ikon Gallery. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Sontag, Deborah (2009-12-20). "At 94, She's the Hot New Thing in Painting". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
  6. ↑ Ship, Steve (2003). Latin American an Caribbean Artists of the Modern Era; A biographical dictionary of more than 12,700 Persons. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland and Company Inc.,. p. 326.
  7. ↑ Jule Schlegel, One day I will just paint a dot and be gone, Some Magazine 2014
  8. ↑ Brodsky], [editor, Dorothy Feaver; text, Estrellita B. (2013). Carmen Herrera : works on paper = opere su carta, 2010-2012. London: Lisson Gallery. ISBN 9780947830397.
  9. ↑ Heller, Jules (1995). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century : A Biographical Dictionary. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc. ISBN 0-8240-6049-0.
  10. ↑ "Works in Progress". The New York Times. 2015-05-15. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
  11. ↑ "Carmen Herrera | Artists | Lisson Gallery". www.lissongallery.com. Retrieved 2016-03-19.
  12. ↑ "Carmen Herrera at 99". W Magazine. 2014-05-30. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
  13. ↑ Eileen Kinsella (31 May 2015). "Artist Carmen Herrera turns 100 years old—artnet News". artnet News.

External links

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