Modern Painters

BOTH IMAGES: CARMEN HERRERABLOUINARTINFO.COM JUNE/JULY 2016 MODERN PAINTERS 87``````HAT WAS NEW YORK CITY likein 1939? “Who the hell cares,”chuckles painter CarmenHerrera, who, at the age of100, is not eager to make nostalgicforays down memory lane.She’d much rather spend her time pondering, sketch-ing, and executing new works—some of whichcurrently populate an exhibition at Lisson Gallery inNew York, on view through June 11. That show,WKHÀUVWDWWKHJDOOHU\·VVSDFHLQWKHFLW\ZLOOEHfollowed by a survey of her works made between1948 and 1978 at the Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, opening September 16. Attentive viewerswill recall a 1959 Herrera diptych from her “Blancoy Verde” series, which hung prominently in theinstitution’s inaugural collection survey, “AmericaIs Hard to See,” alongside canvases by EllsworthKelly, Jo Baer, Jasper Johns, and John McLaughlin.While the Cuban-American artist is now beingretroactively placed within an art historical lineage,it hasn’t always been that way; Herrera, whohas spent the past six decades living in New YorkCity, remained in relative obscurity for much ofthat time.,PHWZLWKKHUWKLVVSULQJLQWKHÁRRUWKURXJKapartment and studio in Gramercy Park that she’sKHOGVLQFH³DOLJKWÀOOHGKRPH\VSDFHOLQHGwith books—and it swiftly becomes clear that theslow fuse of Herrera’s career wasn’t the result of alack of effort. I ask her, rather stupidly, if she hadcared much about whether or not she exhibited herpaintings in those early decades. “I did care, verymuch!” she says. And then, with characteristicallysly humor: “The fact that I was a woman was againstme. I should have turned into a man. I wasn’t readyfor that...and I’m [still] not ready!”Herrera was born in Havana in 1915, andHPLJUDWHGLQ+HUPRVWUHFHQWDQGOLNHO\ÀQDOvisit to her native country was for her mother’sfuneral, in the early 1960s. (During my interviewshe seems perplexed, if not downright annoyed, thatBarack Obama has just made a historic state visit.)The artist’s father was an editor for the newspaperEl Mundo; her mother worked as a journalist forthat outlet and others, an exceedingly uncommonvocation for a Cuban woman at the turn ofthe century.Herrera’s upbringing was fairly cosmopolitan,with a short stint at the Marymount InternationalSchool in Paris in her teens. She began informallystudying art from the age of seven. In 1937, in herHDUO\VVKHVSHDUKHDGHGWKHÀUVWSXEOLFDUWexhibition in Havana, at Parque Albear, which, withthe exception of Herrera, featured an all-maleclique of artists, including Cundo Bermúdez, workingPRVWO\ZLWKLQWKHÀHOGRIVFXOSWXUH Her owncontribution, suspended from a tree, was a sculptureof Christ, crying, atop a painting of a swastika.The artist went on to study architecture in Havana,though unlike many of her peers from those days,VKHQHYHURIÀFLDOO\SUDFWLFHGWKHSURIHVVLRQ:KHQI ask her what sort of building she might havegone on to create, the committed Minimalist air-sketches a simple rectangular façade punctuatedby a single door.)In 1937 she met her future husband and lifelong``````Herrera, front and center, photographedi n Hava na w ith her brother, step -brothers, and mother, a pioneering Cuban journalist.``````The artist led an otherwise all-malegroup that staged a groundbreakingpublic art show in Parque Albear. She was yearsaway from her signature style. Her contribution tothe show, not v isible i n th is image, was a n a nti-Nazistatement: a carved bust of a weeping Christ atopa painting of a swastika.191719 37W