Carmen Herrera ─ Lines of Sight

Cuban-born artist Carmen Herrera (b. 1915) has painted for more than seven decades, though it is only over the past 12 years that acclaim for her work has catapulted the artist to international prominence. This handsome volume offers the first comprehensive look at her life and career, which spans the art worlds of Cuba, Paris, and New York. Essays situate her work in the context of Latin American avant-garde art and also examine the artist’s early studies in Cuba, her involvement with the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris, and her groundbreaking New York output. An essay by Dana Miller places Herrera within the context of Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, and notes her relationships with important midcentury artists such as Barnett Newman. Personal family photographs from Herrera’s archive enrich the narrative, and a chronology addressing the entirety of her career features additional documentary images. Over 80 works are illustrated, including many published here for the first time.

Dana Miller is Richard DeMartini Family Curator and Director of the Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Serge Lemoine is an art historian and professor emeritus at the Paris IV–Sorbonne University and the former director of the Musee de Grenoble and former president of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Gerardo Mosquera is a freelance curator, critic, art historian, and writer based in Havana, Cuba. Edward J. Sullivan is Helen Gould Sheppard Professor of Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art History, New York University. Monica Espinel is an independent curator and critic based in New York.