Cuban artist Zilia Sánchez, known for her multi-dimensional paintings that challenged minimalism with abstract, erotic forms, has died at the age of 98. Her death was confirmed by the Museum of Puerto Rican Art and Lelong & Co., the gallery that represented the artist. Since 2013.
Characterized by outward bulging canvases, Sánchez’s work was unique among the minimalist styles of her time, emphasizing the presence of the body in her work. her works lunar calendar (1980) features prominently in this year’s Venice Biennale, her second appearance at the distinguished biennale and one of many queer, older artists. Sánchez’s latest solo exhibition, “Topologías/Topologies,” is on view at the ICA Miami from April 20 to October 13. It is scheduled to travel to the Museum of Puerto Rican Art in San Juan in spring 2025.
Born in Havana in 1926, Sánchez was introduced to art by her father and childhood neighbor, the Cuban artist Victor Manuel. She graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro in 1947 to study art. Throughout the 1950s, Sanchez gained widespread recognition for his early abstract paintings. In 1953 she had her first solo exhibition at the Havana Accademia. The artist subsequently represented Cuba at the 1958 Mexican Biennale and the 1959 São Paulo Biennale.
Shortly after the Cuban Revolution, Sanchez decided to emigrate, moving to New York in 1962. There she worked as an illustrator to fund her printmaking studies at the Pratt Institute. She has lived in the city for about 10 years, and her work adopts characteristics of the Minimalist movement, such as smoother canvases and a grayscale palette. Her three-dimensional works are created by stretching canvas onto handcrafted wood sculptures. Unlike the work of her contemporaries, these works explore the female form in works known as “erotic topologies.”
In 1971, Sanchez moved to Puerto Rico. There, the artist expanded her abstract work to design the facades of apartment buildings. At the same time, she also provided designs for the short-lived publication Loading Zone. Over the next few decades, her popularity declined outside the Puerto Rican art world.
In recent years, Sanchez’s work has received significant recognition in the United States and internationally. In 2019, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., presented her retrospective exhibition, “Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla (I am an Island),” which later traveled to El Museo del Barrio in New York and the Museo in Puerto Rico. de Arte de Ponce traveling exhibition.
