{"id":73420,"date":"2025-05-04T08:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T08:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/73420\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T08:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T08:49:12","slug":"carmen-herrera-the-paris-years-1948-1953","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/73420\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmen Herrera The Paris Years, 1948 \u20131953"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Carmen Herrera Thrust, 1950 Acrylic on canvas, in artist\u2019s frame 99.1 x 81.6 x 1.9 cm 39 x 32 1\/8 x 3\/4 in
\u00a9 Carmen Herrera, Courtesy Lisson Gallery<\/p>\n

From 1948 to 1953, Carmen Herrera<\/a> lived in Paris, immersing herself in the city\u2019s dynamic postwar artistic community while frequently traveling to New York and Havana. This period marked a decisive shift in her practice, as she moved from biomorphic forms and fevered, gestural compositions to the rigorous geometric abstraction that would define her career for the next seven decades. A new exhibition at Lisson New York, Carmen Herrera: The Paris Years, 1948 \u2013 1953\u2014the most comprehensive presentation of her work from this period to-date\u2014 examines a young artist deep in experimentation, subsuming the seismic influences of many colliding midcentury art movements, in order to develop her own breakthrough language of painting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Herrera\u2019s years in Paris were a time of creative freedom and intellectual exchange, particularly through her participation in exhibitions such as the Salon des R\u00e9alit\u00e9s Nouvelles, where she exhibited alongside other prominent figures such as Theo van Doesburg, Max Bill, and Piet Mondrian, as well as younger artists associated with Venezuela\u2019s Los Disidentes, Brazil\u2019s Concretists, and Argentina\u2019s Grupo Madi. The city exposed her to key modernist movements such as Bauhaus and Russian Suprematism, which deeply influenced the shift toward her own uniquely minimal language. During her time in Paris, Herrera began employing shaped canvases while also becoming a pioneer in solvent-based acrylics, a material still novel in postwar Europe. Notably, an important work from this period, Iberic (1949), is currently the oldest work in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to use this particular medium, a fact that was discovered through scientific analysis by the museum in 2021.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Carmen Herrera Way, 1950 Acrylic on Burlap 99.4 x 84.1 x 2.9 cm 39 1\/8 x 33 1\/8 x 1 1\/8 in \u00a9 Carmen Herrera, Courtesy Lisson Gallery<\/p>\n

Key works on view include Way (1950), an early example of the hard-edged, dichromatic abstraction that would later become her signature. The painting\u2019s four symmetrical ochre-colored triangles against a black background prefigure later masterpieces such as Black and White (1952) in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Another major work from this period, Thrust (1950), exemplifies Herrera\u2019s precision and spatial tension, featuring a striking white dart slashing across a cobalt blue ground. The work, both in its palette and bold linear composition, foreshadows Herrera\u2019s future direction while also underscoring her approach to painting as object. This idea is further emphasized by the use of an artist-made frame, which was intended to prevent a buyer from re-framing the work. This concept evolves in subsequent pieces where she allowed her compositions to wrap about the edges, transforming them into fully three-dimensional forms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Carmen Herrera Conquete de l\u2019air, 1950 Acrylic on canvas 75.9 x 117.2 x 2.2 cm 29 7\/8 x 46 1\/8 x 7\/8 in \u00a9 Carmen Herrera, Courtesy Lisson Gallery\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Herrera\u2019s Habana Series marks a pivotal moment in the artist\u2019s development, showcasing her experimentation with gestural abstraction and Informalism during a brief stay in New York in 1950, as argued by Roxane Ilias in her essay, \u201cCarmen Herrera and the Paris School.\u201d Created in response to transnational developments in Abstract Expressionism, these works contrast with the structured geometric compositions of her Paris paintings. Like others from this series, Conquete de l\u2019air (1950) features spontaneous brushstrokes, unruly lines, amorphous forms, and vibrant colors applied without Herrera\u2019s typical preparatory sketches. Modest in scale, the paintings emphasize a tactile graphic quality with thick, rough surfaces. Named after her first solo exhibition at Havana\u2019s Lyceum and Lawn Tennis Club (December 1950 \u2013 January 1951), the series reflects Herrera\u2019s synthesis of Tachisme and Expressionism, blending the gestural techniques of Hans Hartung with those of Jackson Pollock.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Carmen Herrera, Early Dynasty, 1953, Oil on canvas, 121.9 x 121.9 x 3.2 cm, 48 x 48 x 1 1\/4 in \u00a9 Carmen Herrera, Courtesy Lisson Gallery\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The exhibition also features Early Dynasty (1953), the largest painting from this period, which demonstrates Herrera\u2019s ambition and evolving style. In this work, she layers multiple colors and geometric forms, referencing motifs from earlier paintings to create a composition in constant motion. The deep blue, mushroom-like form at the top left echoes a similar shape in other canvasses from this period including Logique Coloree No. 5 (1949) and The King in Jail, 1948 both on view in this exhibition. This tendency to revisit and refine geometric forms would become a hallmark of her later work, reinforcing her relentless pursuit of visual clarity and balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Herrera\u2019s move back to New York in September 1953 presented challenges, as the art world\u2019s gender and racial biases delayed her recognition. However, the radical developments of her Paris period laid the foundation for the rigorously precise, minimalist works that would define her later career. This exhibition builds on recent institutional recognition of Herrera\u2019s artistic contributions during this period, including her inclusion in Women in Abstraction (Centre Pompidou, 2021\u201322) and Americans in Paris (Grey Art Museum, 2024). It also precedes Both Sides of the Line: Carmen Herrera and Leon Polk Smith, a major touring museum show curated by Dana Miller, who also curated Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2016.<\/p>\n

Carmen Herrera, The Paris Years, 1948 \u20131953,<\/strong> 1st May \u2013 1st August 2025 Lisson<\/a> 508 West 24th Street<\/p>\n

Installation Images: Exhibition view of \u2018Carmen Herrera: The Paris Years, 1948 \u2013 1953\u2019 at Lisson Gallery, New York, 1 May \u2013 1 August 2025 \u00a9 Carmen Herrera, Courtesy Lisson Gallery<\/p>\n

About the artist<\/p>\n

Carmen Herrera was born in Havana, Cuba in 1915. She moved frequently between France and Cuba throughout the 1930s and 1940s; having started studying architecture at the Universidad de La Habana, Havana (1938\u201339), she trained at the Art Students League, New York (1942\u2013 43), before exhibiting five times at the Salon des R\u00e9alit\u00e9s Nouvelles, Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (1949\u201353). She settled in New York in 1954, where she lived and worked until her death in 2022. Herrera\u2019s work was the subject of a large-scale survey,\u00a0Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016), which travelled to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2017) and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (K20), D\u00fcsseldorf (2017\u20132018). Herrera premiered her\u00a0Estructuras Monumentales, massive aluminium structures largely conceived in the 1960s and 1970s, at City Hall Park in New York City in 2019, organised by the Public Art Fund. Herrera\u2019s large-scale mural,\u00a0Verde, que te quiero verde\u00a0(2020) was unveiled at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin in May of 2023 as part of the museum\u2019s grounds redesign. In March of 2024, an exhibition focusing on the last fifteen years Herrera\u2019s output opened at SITE Santa Fe, NM. Herrera\u2019s work\u00a0was featured in Adriano Pedrosa\u2019s exhibition\u00a0Straniere Ovunque \u2013 Foreigners Everywhere\u00a0at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, 20 April \u2013 24 November, 2024.<\/p>\n

Herrera\u2019s work is in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Tate Collection, London; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (K20), D\u00fcsseldorf; the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; El Museo del Barrio, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; the P\u00e9rez Art Museum, Miami; Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; and the Morgan Library & Museum, New York.<\/p>\n

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