Amelia Pelaez (1896-1968) - Maternidad

Rare painting by Cuban painter Amelia Pelaez. It is an oil painting on canvas measuring 71 x 50.5 cm. The painting is signed and dated at the lower right.

Provenance

Private collection, Havana, Cuba
Sarracino Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida, USA
Fernando Duran Auctions, Arte Contemporaneo, December 28, 2020, lot number 40

Amelia Pelaez
Amelia Peláez y de Casal was born in the second year of Cuba's last war of independence against Spain, on January 5, 1896, in Yaguajay, in the province of Las Villas, Cuba. Her family belonged to the Cuban Creole middle class and was prosperous both economically and socially, as her father was the district physician, Manuel Peláez y Laredo. Moreover, her mother, Maria del Carmen del Casal y Lastra, was the sister of the great Latin American modernist poet Julian del Casal. This connection placed Peláez's family among Cuba's highest intellectual circles.

Peláez was born into a large family, and they all began their schooling with Mrs. Carmen del Casal y Lastra, who had attended the Covenant and Academy of Visitation in Mobile, Alabama. Because Cuba was under Spanish rule, education was dominated by the Spanish Roman Catholic elite. Homeschooling probably gave the Peláez children a less biased education and allowed their mother to teach them as she wished, without a Spanish curriculum. Peláez's first introduction to the art world was through a painter named Doña Magdalena, who had previously been active in the independence movement that coincided with the 1895–1898 war.

In 1915, Dr. Manuel Peláez y Laredo fell ill and moved with his family to Havana, where they could live in greater comfort. Although he died within a year, the home he had established for his family would remain with them for the rest of their lives. Number 261 on Estrada Palma in the La Vibora neighborhood became both Peláez's home and a source of inspiration in her later years. The house, named Villa Carmela after Peláez's mother, was built in 1912 and combined elements of both neoclassical architecture and more traditional Cuban Creole architecture. Its towering white façade and columns introduced neoclassical design elements, and such columns can be seen in the background of countless paintings by Peláez. Creole architecture brought more decorative elements, and the wrought-iron railings and ornate windows are the finest examples of these at La Villa Carmela. In the backyard, a pavilion surrounded by plants and birds would become Peláez's main studio, and this natural inspiration would also appear in some of her paintings. Peláez's artworks adorned the walls and corridors of La Villa Carmela, filling the house with paintings inspired by it.

In 1916, Peláez began her artistic training at the San Alejandro School of Fine Arts, where many Cuban painters of her time began their studies. Most of the artists who taught there practiced the French neoclassical style, which drew inspiration from similar Greek and Roman styles. These practices did not appeal to Peláez or her own feelings about art, but she found a cultural and artistic mentor in a color class in 1918 with instructor Leopoldo Romañach (Gómez-Sicre 13). Although Romañach practiced Romantic realism, he was tolerant and open to many more forms of artistic expression. His influence on Peláez's art can be seen in her 1925 painting Veleros, which has a maritime subject, like all of Romañach's work, and makes use of his palette and soft brushwork. In 1924, Peláez spent her vacation studying at the Art Students League in New York under Professor Bridgman. This trip was unique in her education, but left her largely dissatisfied with the limited artistic styles she had encountered. She took matters into her own hands and traveled to Paris in 1927 on a scholarship from her alma mater, like many of her fellow students.

Together with the equally ambitious artist Lydia Cabrera, Peláez attended classes at several art schools in the city, including the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, the École des Beaux-Arts, and the École du Louvre. After studying French art movements for four years, Peláez had still not found her calling in painting, and she enrolled at Fernand Léger's Académie Moderne. There she studied scenography and color dynamics under Alexandra Exter, a woman who had an enormous influence on Peláez's art and life. Exter introduced Peláez to modernism, abstraction, and new and unique ways of expressing forms and using color. From Exter, Peláez also learned confidence and determination as a professional woman artist.

In 1933, Peláez exhibited 33 works at Galerie Zak, located on Rue de l’Abbaye in Paris. Her collection consisted of 21 still lifes, nine landscapes, and eight portraits of women. The exhibition was very well received, and the following year, after this success, she returned to Cuba.

At the age of 38, Peláez returned to Cuba, where she found herself in a country in economic and political turmoil. Her first solo exhibition in her homeland took place in 1935 at the Lyceum, a women's organization whose aim was to promote Cuban culture through art, music, and literature. After her return, Peláez also became a member of the Cuban avant-garde movement, the Vanguardia.

One of the driving forces behind political activity in Cuba was the call for autonomy and the hope for a new system of government. At that time, the Vanguardia helped promote nationalism by using art to explore and define Cuban culture as an entity in its own right. While other artists delved into afrocubanismo and criollismo, studying Afro-Cuban and Euro-Cuban heritage respectively, Peláez focused on her experience of cubanidad, exploring the role of secluded and often controlled upper-class women, as her family ties to indigenous Cuban culture allowed her to do.

Marapacifico, 1936
Her paintings took on a more feminine and feminist focus after Peláez returned to Cuba. Her work completed at home shows the development of her characteristic style, inspired by fruit, architecture, and traditional Cuban stained glass.

As her artistic style developed, Peláez also spent periods working exclusively in a single medium. Between 1935 and 1936, she worked almost exclusively in pencil, with brief forays into two frescoes. Another such period occurred in the early 1950s, when she focused on ceramics and created the ceramic mural for the National Accounting Office.

Although Peláez's paintings can sell for thousands of dollars today, making a living as an artist was extraordinarily difficult for her. Her first exhibition in Cuba after her return from Paris resulted in no sales, and she spent much of her time teaching art in Cuba to supplement her sporadic income from sold works. Another difficulty she faced was the acceptance of modern art. It was a growing movement, but many people did not accept its stylistic approach. In the 1940s, Cuban modernists finally gained recognition thanks to a traveling exhibition of modern Cuban art that toured the United States, Europe, and Latin America. In 1941, Peláez's work was exhibited in New York for the first time in the magazine Norte, leading to several acquisitions of her art by the Museum of Modern Art in the following years.

Her perspective as a woman gave Peláez a special place in the avant-garde world, as she was able to view Cuban life and tradition from a different point of view. She lived a much more secluded life than her fellow avant-garde painters and was one of the few women to participate in the Latin American art movement. Peláez's vision of Cubanismo contributed in a distinctive way to the realization of Cuban tradition, and her unique visual language conveyed her social concerns and emotions to her audience.