"LOLÓ SOLDEVILLA"; DOLORES SOLDEVILLA NIETO (Pinar del Río, Cuba 1901-Havana, 1971).
Untitled, 1955.
Wood, oil and metal. It has movable elements.
Attached certificate issued by Doña Martha Flora Carranza Barba, granddaughter of the artist.
Signed and dated on the base.
Measurements: 74 x 41 x 14 cm.
Apart from her well-known career as a painter, Lolo Soldevilla explored other fields such as sculpture. In fact, in 1949 she decided to study sculpture at the Grande Chaumièr Academy in Paris. In this particular case, her work reflects the aesthetic trends of the time, influenced by geometric abstraction. By twisting iron, the artist transforms the lines of the rigid material into curves which harmonise with the circumferences made of wood.
Loló Soldevilla is considered one of the most important figures of Geometric Abstraction and Kineticism, both for her achievements during her career and for her efforts to promote Cuban art inside and outside the borders of her country. He always showed political involvement through his art, both at home and abroad, taking an active part in the campaigns to help the Spanish Republic after the outbreak of the Civil War.
His artistic career was always marked by experimentation, not only stylistically but also technically, and he produced works in different media such as sculpture, engraving and drawing. His artistic career began in 1948, influenced by his friendship with Wifredo Lam, who encouraged and supported him in his beginnings in the world of painting. In 1949 he settled in Paris, where he studied at the Académie Grande Chaumière, making frequent trips and exhibitions in Cuba to show his work. In 1951 she joined the workshop of Dewasne and Pillet, where she stayed for two years, and attended a course on printmaking techniques by Hayter and Cochet, maintaining and encouraging creative exchanges with the School of Paris. Linked to the 26th of July Movement, she was forced to live a clandestine life, since during the pre-revolutionary period she collaborated in Diario de la Marina, Carteles, Información, El País, Avance, Porvenir, Tiempo en Cuba and Survey, as well as in the Parisian publications Combat and Arts. After the revolutionary triumph of 1959 she joined the newspaper Revolución as an editor and during the academic year 1960-61 she established herself as a professor of plastic arts at the School of Architecture of the University of Havana. From then on, Dolores Soldevilla combined her artistic career with her teaching work at the University's School of Architecture and at the newspaper Granma. Thanks to her aesthetic approaches, the Grupo Espacio emerged and she was a member of the group Diez Pintores Concretos; she was a member of the UPEC and the UNEAC and collaborated with Bohemia. During his lifetime his work was exhibited in important artistic spaces such as the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Cuba, in Caracas (Venezuela), Paris, in Valencia, Valladolid (Spain), Czechoslovakia, etc., achieving great recognition of his work at a global level. Today his work is preserved in numerous private collections around the world and in institutions such as the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba (where the main collection is kept).