On Sunday evening, New York local time, Carmen Herrera, a 107-year-old woman painter of Cuban descent, died in her apartment.
Carmen Herrera
Before her death, Carmen Herrera was best known as "the oldest living female artist", and the legend about her is that after starting to create in the 1940s, she was accepted by the art world and officially sold her first painting at the age of nearly 90, and began to become popular after crossing the threshold of 100 years.
Carmen Herrera was born in May 1915 in Havana, Cuba. Her father was a well-known local newspaper editor and her mother was a well-known journalist. Growing up in Havana, Carmen began studying painting and architecture in the 1930s, and her original dream was to become an architect.
Works by Carmen Herrera
In 1948, Herrera moved to Paris with her husband, where she met a number of famous artists. She was friends with the abstract master Mark Rothko and knew the famous Abstract Expressionist artists de Kunin and Pollock. According to Herrera, the free and vibrant days in Paris after World War II were the best memories of her life.
It was in a gallery in Paris called "Réalités Nouvelles "New Reality", that she discovered the beauty of abstract art and was deeply attracted to it. The style of painting she later formed and adhered to throughout her life was also minimalist abstract painting, which perfectly integrated with the sense of line and space of architectural design, creating her own abstract art style - "hard edge geometry" painting.
I like straight lines
Like different angles, order
In the midst of this chaos in which we live
I like to keep everything organized, perhaps
That's why I'm an angular painter
is a geometric painter
—Carmen Herrera
Still, in paris, where masters gather, the Cuban woman's abstract works have not received much attention from the art world. But Carmen Herrera continued to work, and from 1949 to 1952, he participated in the salon of the "New Reality" gallery every year. In 1954, she and her husband returned to New York and have since settled.
In New York, Herrera persisted in creating, even though she still failed to sell her work. She remains convinced that one day, someone will appreciate her work. "As I get older, I feel more relaxed and free – no one needs me to do anything, no one needs me to please them, I just have to please myself."
Finally, Carmen Herrera's persistence and advanced age gradually attracted the attention of the art world — when she was about to turn 90, famous art institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Modern began to buy her works, and media interviews followed.
Carmen Herrera as a young man
In 2009, birmingham Gallery held a solo exhibition for Herrera in the UK, and The Riesson Gallery in London immediately noticed her and began representing her work in 2012. In 2016, New York's Ritten Gallery officially opened, opening with Herrera's solo exhibition, the centenarian female artist who quickly became popular online.
"Carmen's work is always full of life and constantly updated, and even after she seems to have reached the peak of her artistic achievements, she still maintains her creativity and constantly tries to break through herself." Alex Rugsdale, CEO of The New York Gallery at Ritson, said so in a statement of condolences and commemoration. It is reported that The Ritten New York Gallery will hold another retrospective solo exhibition for Herrera at the end of May to commemorate her 107th birthday, which should have been celebrated at that time.
Red Star News reporter | Qiao Xueyang
Edited | Duan Xueying
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