拍品專文
Over the course of the last fifteen years, critical attention (in the form of writing and exhibitions) has brought Amelia Peláez's work to a wide-reaching international audience. As a result of renewed curatorial interest and its accompanying scholarhip, the great Cuban modernist can now be viewed on an equal footing with many of her leading contemporaries throughout the Americas.
When Amelia left Cuba for France in 1927, the young artist was under the tutelage of Leopoldo Romañach (1862-1951), a principle teacher at the Academy of San Alejandro in Havana. Her formative style was conservatively expressionistic. During the artist's subsequent seven years in Paris, she immersed herself in the study of European modernists such as Matisse, Léger, Soutine, Braque, Picasso and Alexandra Exter, who was also her teacher for a short time. As Amelia gained confidence in her ability to construct abstracted forms, to suggest diverse spatial orientations, and to present a composition featuring the minimal elements of the subject at hand, she also reached a new level of maturity as an artist.
Naturaleza Muerta, the present lot, is an excellent example of one of her finest works from the Paris period. When Amelia returned to Cuba in early 1934, she further developed the innovative, modernist ideas characterized by the distilled geometric forms of the fruit, dish and table in her constructivist works. In response to Havana's tropical surroundings, as well as from the intimacy and protection of the artist's home and garden, Amelia produced still lifes incorporating native fruits and flowers while capturing a sense of Cuba's light and color.
Beginning in 1940, however, the artist began developing a new visual vocabulary. During that decade, she achieved a signature style that adopted the intricate, intertwining forms of colonial baroque objects and architecture specific to Havana. Until that turning point, Amelia had been intent on expressing her view of a private world where organic forms such as those featured in Still Life in Red/Naturaleza Muerta of 1938 and Cashews/Marañones of 1939-1940 look back on those in paintings such as Naturaleza Muerta of a few years earlier. (1)
We are grateful to Dr. Julia P. Herzberg, Ph.D., Art Historian and Curator, for her assistance in cataloguing and writing the above essay for the present lot.
____________________________________________________
1. Still Life in Red/Naturaleza Muerta and Cashews/Marañones are reproduced in Amelia Peláez 1896-1968: A Retrospective, Miami, The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, 1988, p. 79-80, n. 6-7. (See especailly Giulio Blanc's essay 'The Secret Garden of Amelia Peláez', for a comprehensive study to the artist).
When Amelia left Cuba for France in 1927, the young artist was under the tutelage of Leopoldo Romañach (1862-1951), a principle teacher at the Academy of San Alejandro in Havana. Her formative style was conservatively expressionistic. During the artist's subsequent seven years in Paris, she immersed herself in the study of European modernists such as Matisse, Léger, Soutine, Braque, Picasso and Alexandra Exter, who was also her teacher for a short time. As Amelia gained confidence in her ability to construct abstracted forms, to suggest diverse spatial orientations, and to present a composition featuring the minimal elements of the subject at hand, she also reached a new level of maturity as an artist.
Naturaleza Muerta, the present lot, is an excellent example of one of her finest works from the Paris period. When Amelia returned to Cuba in early 1934, she further developed the innovative, modernist ideas characterized by the distilled geometric forms of the fruit, dish and table in her constructivist works. In response to Havana's tropical surroundings, as well as from the intimacy and protection of the artist's home and garden, Amelia produced still lifes incorporating native fruits and flowers while capturing a sense of Cuba's light and color.
Beginning in 1940, however, the artist began developing a new visual vocabulary. During that decade, she achieved a signature style that adopted the intricate, intertwining forms of colonial baroque objects and architecture specific to Havana. Until that turning point, Amelia had been intent on expressing her view of a private world where organic forms such as those featured in Still Life in Red/Naturaleza Muerta of 1938 and Cashews/Marañones of 1939-1940 look back on those in paintings such as Naturaleza Muerta of a few years earlier. (1)
We are grateful to Dr. Julia P. Herzberg, Ph.D., Art Historian and Curator, for her assistance in cataloguing and writing the above essay for the present lot.
____________________________________________________
1. Still Life in Red/Naturaleza Muerta and Cashews/Marañones are reproduced in Amelia Peláez 1896-1968: A Retrospective, Miami, The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, 1988, p. 79-80, n. 6-7. (See especailly Giulio Blanc's essay 'The Secret Garden of Amelia Peláez', for a comprehensive study to the artist).