![\"Villa](\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/global-modern-women-artists\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2016-12-14-at-2.48.35-PM-300x226.png\")
In 1915 Doctor Manuel Pel\u00e1ez y Laredo became sick and relocated his family to Havana where they could live in more comfort. Although he died within the year, the house within which he had established his family would last them a lifetime. Number 261 on the street Estrada Palma in the neighborhood of La Vibora came to be both the dwelling of and inspiration for Pel\u00e1ez in her later years. The house, called Villa Carmela after Pel\u00e1ez’s mother, was built in 1912 and incorporated aspects of both neoclassical design and more traditional Cuban Creole architecture. The towering white facade and columns brought in neoclassical design elements, and columns such as these can be seen in the background of numerous Pel\u00e1ez paintings. Creole architecture brought in more decorative elements, and the wrought iron fence as well as ornate windows are the best examples of this in La Villa Carmela. In the backyard a pavilion surrounded by plants and birds would become Pel\u00e1ez\u2019s primary workshop, and this natural insparation would come through in some of her paintings as well. Pieces of Pel\u00e1ez’s art\u00a0 would line the walls and the hallways in La Villa Carmela, filling the house with paintings that it helped to inspire (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 12).<\/p>\n
In 1916 Pel\u00e1ez began to study painting at the San Alejandro School of Fine Arts, where many members Cuban painters in her time began their studies. The majority of the artists teaching there practiced the French neoclassical styles that drew inspiration from similar Greek and Roman styles. These practices did not speak to Pel\u00e1ez and her own feelings about art, but she managed to find a cultural and artistic mentor in a 1918 color class with teacher Leopoldo Roma\u00f1ach (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 13). Roma\u00f1ach, although he practiced romantic realism, was tolerant and accepting of many more forms of artistic expression. His influence on the art of Pel\u00e1ez can be seen in her painting Veleros<\/i> from 1925, which has a maritime subject similar to all work by Roma\u00f1ach and uses his palette and soft brushwork (Gaztambide 86). In 1924 Pel\u00e1ez spent her break studying at the Arts Students League in New York under Professor Bridgman (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 13) which was a trip unique to her education, but that trip also left her largely unsatisfied with the limited styles of art that she had been exposed to. Taking matters into her own hands, she traveled to Paris in 1927 with a scholarship from her Alma Mater as many of her peers were doing.<\/p>\n
Accompanied by fellow aspiring artist Lydia Cabrera, Pel\u00e1ez took classes all over the city at the Acad\u00e9mie de la Grande Chaumi\u00e8re, \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts, and the \u00c9cole du Louvre. After four years of studying French artistic styles Pel\u00e1ez had still not found her niche in painting and enrolled in Fernand L\u00e9ger\u2019s Acad\u00e9mie Moderne. Here she studied scene design and color dynamics under Alexandra Exter (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 14), a woman who had a huge impact on the art and life of Pel\u00e1ez. Exter introduced Pel\u00e1ez to modernism (Blanc 14), abstraction, and new and unique ways to express forms and use color. Pel\u00e1ez also learned from Exter a sense of self and determination as a professional female artist (Gaztambide 86).<\/p>\n In 1933, Pel\u00e1ez showed 33 works at the Galerie Zak, located on the Rue de l\u2019Abbaye in Paris. Her collection there consisted of 21 still life paintings, nine landscapes, and eight portraits of women. \u00a0The exhibition was very well received (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 14), and the year later she returned to Cuba in the wake of that success.<\/p>\n 38 years old and back in Cuba, Pel\u00e1ez found herself in the middle of a country in economic and political frenzy. Her first solo exhibition back home was at the Lyceum in 1935, a women’s organization with the goal of promoting Cuban culture through art, music, and literature. Additionally, upon Pel\u00e1ez’s return she became a member of the Cuban avant-garde movement, the vanguardia.<\/p>\n One of the sources of the political activity in Cuba was the cry for autonomy and hope for a new governing system. The vanguardia helped to promote nationalism in this time (Gaztambide 88) by using art to explore and define Cuban culture as its own entity. While other artists explored afrocubanismo<\/i> and criollismo<\/i>, which studied afro-cuban and euro-cuban descent respectively, Pel\u00e1ez focused on her experience with cubanidad<\/i> (Gaztambide 88)which explored the roles of the secluded and often controlled upper class women, as her family roots in native Cuban culture allowed her to do (Lu\u00eds sect. 3: Amelia Pel\u00e1ez).<\/p>\n Her paintings grew to have a more feminine and feminist focus (Blanc 14) as Pel\u00e1ez returned home to Cuba. Her work completed at home is a demonstration of the development of her signature style with inspiration from fruit, architecture, and traditional Cuban stained glass (Lu\u00eds sect. 3: Amelia Pel\u00e1ez). Two examples of her works that show feminine themes are Marapac\u00edfico<\/em> (1936) and Naturaleza muerta en rojo<\/em> (1938). Marapac\u00edfico<\/em> represents many of the lessons that Pel\u00e1ez learned from Exter (Blanc 14), and shows the hibiscus, which is a very feminine and sexual flower especially in red, and is accented by curved lines that imply abundance. These thick lines that organize the painting are representative of Exter’s work. Naturaleza muerta en rojo<\/em> also plays with fruits such as the<\/p>\n guanabana and the pomegranate to convey a sense of fertility. In the background of this painting there is also play with thick black lines, which evolves in later paintings to show Cuban colonial architecture (Pau-Llosa 7-8). Siesta<\/em> (1941) expands on the architectural elements that she hinted at in previous works, and this expression of architecture only became more pronounced through the 40s (Mart\u00ednez 128).<\/p>\n While her artistic style was developing, Pel\u00e1ez also spent periods of time working exclusively in one medium.\u00a0 She worked almost exclusively in pencil between 1935 and 36, taking small detours to construct two fresco murals (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 15). Another one of these periods occurred in the early 1950s, when she focused on pottery and constructed the ceramic mural for the National Accounting Office (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 12,16).<\/p>\n Although paintings by Pel\u00e1ez can now be sold for thousands of dollars, it was extremely hard for her to make a living as an artist. Her first exhibition in Cuba after returning from Paris sold no paintings, and she spent a lot of time teaching art locally to supplement her occasional income from sold works (Mart\u00ednez 28-29). Another difficulty she faced was the acceptance of modern art. It was a growing practice but many people did not accept the stylistic approach. The 1940s finally put Cuban modernists on the map with a traveling Modern Cuban Art exhibition that visited the U.S, Europe, and Latin America (Mart\u00ednez 26). In 1941 Pel\u00e1ez’s work was shown for the first time in New York for the magazine Norte, and this led to multiple purchases of her art by the Museum of Modern Art in the following years (G\u00f3mez-Sicre 16).<\/p>\n Her perspective as a woman gave Pel\u00e1ez a special place in the world of the vanguardia because she was able to look at Cuban life and tradition from a different perspective. She existed much more privately than her fellow vanguardia painters, and was only one of a few women to participate in the movement of Latin American art (Pau-Llosa 7-8). Pel\u00e1ez’s perspective on cubanismo<\/i> contributed in special ways to the realization of Cuban tradition, and her unique visual language conveyed her social concerns and emotions to her audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amelia Pel\u00e1ez y de Casal was born in the second year of Cuba’s final liberation war against Spain on January 5th, 1896 in Yaguajay, the province of Las Villas, Cuba. Her family was part of the Cuban-Creole middle class, and was well-off both economically and socially as her father was the County Doctor Manuel Pel\u00e1ez … Continue reading Biography<\/span> ![\"naturalezamuerta1931\"](\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/global-modern-women-artists\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2016\/12\/Naturalezamuerta1931-238x300.jpg\")
![](\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/global-modern-women-artists\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2016-12-14-at-10.09.49-AM-300x231.png\")
![\"Naturaleza](\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/global-modern-women-artists\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2016\/12\/Screen-Shot-2016-12-14-at-10.14.03-AM-300x242.png\")