Painting

A Trove of (Latin American) Art

The Museum of Modern Art has just received what is arguably one of the most transformative donations in its history: more than one hundred modern works produced by thirty-seven Latin American masters, which have entered the collection through the generosity of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. This theme was developed to share information about…

Part 2: The Anonymous Rule: Joaquín Torres-García, the Schematic Impulse, and Arcadian Modernity

Curator Luis Pérez-Oramas considers the roots of the classicizing and modernist impulses in the work of Joaquín Torres-García. The essay examines a driving paradox of the artist’s work–the will to be modern while working against the grain of modernity–following episodes in his life, writings, and works. This is the second part of three. Torres’s first…

Part 2: Spirit of America: Joaquín Torres-García in New York, 1920-1922

Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães discusses the disillusionment that led Modernist painter Joaquín Torres-García to leave New York as well as the city’s lasting influence on his artmaking and his continued ties to North America in this biographical essay. Second part of two. Despite these exhibitions, his circle of prosperous friends, and his significant connections to artists and…

A Flâneur in Montevideo: Joaquín Torres-Garcías “La ciudad sin nombre”

Jorge Schwartz discusses the prominence of the urban in Joaquín Torres-García’s visual and literary works. A major retrospective at MoMA, The Arcadian Modern, reveals a totalizing and structural vision of Joaquín Torres-García’s thinking, mainly through his painting, sculpture, objects, and, of particular interest to me, bibliographic production: his theoretical texts about Constructivism, autobiographical texts, manifestos,…

Growing Up With Style

Artist and critic Luis Camnitzer discusses his personal relationship to the work and legacy of Joaquín Torres-García with special attention to his influential Taller and the recent exhibition at MoMA. I am at a point in my life when I have made complete peace with Joaquín Torres-García. It took a long time. Growing up in…