Amelia Peláez

Amelia Peláez del Casal (5 January 1896 –

8 April 1968) was an important Cuban
painter of the Avant-garde generation.
 Amelia Peláez

Amelia Peláez

Born 1896
Yaguajay, Cuba

Died 8 April 1968

Havana, Cuba

Biography
Salón de Mayo, 1967. Sidewalk insert in front of
Radiocentro CMQ Building by Amelia Peláez.

Amelia Peláez was born in 1896 in

Yaguajay, in the former Cuban province of
Las Villas (now Sancti Spíritus Province).
In 1915, her family moved to Havana, to
the La Víbora district, and this gave her the
opportunity to enter the Escuela Nacional
de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" at the
rather late age of 20 years (students at
this academy usually start at 12–13 years
of age). She was among Leopoldo
Romañach's favourite students. In 1924
she graduated from San Alejandro, and
exhibited her paintings for the first time,
along with another Cuban female painter,
María Pepa Lamarque, at the Association
of Painters and Sculptors in Havana.
Receiving a small government grant, she
travelled to New York City in the Summer
of 1924 and began six months of study at
the Art Students' League. In 1927, after
being awarded a larger grant, she began
studying in France, while paying short
visits to Spain, Italy, and other
countries.[1][2]
Untitled painting, 1947, Amelia Peláez.

In Paris, she took drawing and art history

courses at the Académie de la Grande
Chaumière, the École Nationale Supérieure
des Beaux-Arts, and the École du Louvre.
In 1931 she began studying with Russian
painter Alexandra Exter, whose classes in
color theory and design were an important
influence.[3] Galerie Zak hosted an
exhibition of her paintings in 1933, and the
following year she returned to Cuba.[2]
Peláez received a prize in the National
Exposition of Painters and Sculptors in
1938, and collaborated on several art
magazines in Cuba, such as Orígenes,
Nadie Parecía, and Espuela de Plata. In
1950 she opened a workshop at San
Antonio de los Baños, a small city near
Havana, where she dedicated herself, until
1962, to her favourite pastime of pottery.
She sent her paintings to the São Paulo Art
Biennial in 1951 and 1957, and
participated in 1952's Venice Biennale. In
1958 she was a guest of honour and jury
member at the First Inter-American
Biennial of Painting and Printmaking in
Mexico City,[1] although she pulled out of
the raucous and controversial jury
discussions based on what she reported
to be “an openly Communist bias in the
decisions.”[4] , in Havana, featuring mural
by Amelia Peláez.]] Aside from painting
and pottery, she dedicated time to murals,
located mainly at different schools in
Cuba. Her most important works of this
type are a ceramic mural at the Tribunal de
Cuentas in Havana (1953) and the facade
of the Habana Hilton hotel (1957).[2]

Peláez died in Havana in 1968.

Collections
The works of Peláez are held in the Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana
and the Museum of Modern Art, New
York.[5]

Further reading
Peláez, A. (1991). Amelia Peláez,
exposición retrospectiva 1924-1967:
óleos, témperas, dibujos y cerámica.
Caracas, Fundación Museo de Bellas
Artes.
Pintores Cubanos, Editors Vicente Baez,
Virilio Pinera, Calvert Casey, and Anton
Arrufat; Ediciones Revolucion, Havana,
Cuba 1962
External links
Ediciones Vanguardia Cubana. Libros de
Pintura Cubana, Amelia Pelaez

References
1. Vida y Obra de Amelia Peláez
Archived 2013-01-17 at
Archive.today
2. Cubanet-artist biography:Amelia
Pelaez;
http://www.cubanet.org/htdocs/lee/a
melia.html retvd 12 18 15
3. Martinez, Juan A.;Cuban Art &
National Identity: The Vanguardia
 Painters, 1927-1950; University Press
of Florida, 1994; ISBN 0-8130-1306-2
4. ICAA MFAH-Documents of 20th
Century Latin-American and Latino
Art;
http://icaadocs.mfah.org/icaadocs/T
HEARCHIVE/FullRecord/tabid/88/do
c/786721/language/en-
US/Default.aspx retvd 12 18 15
5. Hillstrom, Laurie Collier; Hillstrom,
Kevin (1999). Contemporary women
artists . Detroit: St. James Press.

Gallery
 Hotel Tryp Habana Libre

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