BIOGRAPHY

Amelia Peláez’s (1896 – 1968) quasi-abstract compositions feature ornamental architectural motifs. Her abstracted interiors reference colonial architecture as well as light, color and form more generally. The combination of vantage points is greatly simplified in her paintings, with each form reduced to its essential attributes, in line with Purism and Constructivism. The manipulation of color and form to create decorative surfaces is a one of the many hallmarks of her paintings.

Amelia Peláez graduated San Alejandro Academy Havana (1924).  In 1927, Peláez went to Paris and studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and the École du Louvre. At Fernand Léger’s Académie Moderne she studied under Russian Constructivist Alexandra Exter. In 1934 the artist returns to Cuba where she worked until her death (1968). Peláez’s major exhibitions include the 26th Venice Biennale (1952); Art Institute of Chicago (1969); Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City (1979); Sao Paulo Biennial (1951, 1957, 1987); Fundacion La Caixa, Madrid (1997); and many others. An early seminal exhibition Modern Cuban Painters at the Museum of Modern Art (1944) was curated by Alfred H. Barr and included 13 artists, Pelaez the sole woman among them, with 11 of her works included.  The exhibition traveled to a dozen museums in the United States including National Gallery of Art, DC and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Reproduced from the David Castillo Gallery site