Carmen Herrera Mural, 2022
In 2021, the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin, commissioned Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera to create a mural for the renovation of their outdoor spaces. Herrera was 105 years old in 2021 and the request was her first major public mural commission.
“It is an honor that my first major public mural commission will be with the Blanton Museum of Art,” she said, “an institution that I have admired and respected for decades. As a museum that has long been at the forefront of collecting work by artists of Latin American descent, as well as the place where Ellsworth Kelly realized his last great work of art, entering the collection at this moment marks a high point in my long career.”
The mural spans the length of the interior loggia wall of the Michener Gallery Building. across the length of the building and framing the main entrance. It is titled Verde que te quiero verde, meaning Green How I Desire You Green, from the poem Romance sonámbulo by Federico García Lorca.
Herrera was born in Havana in 1915. She studied architecture at the University of Havana, lived in Paris from 1948 to 1954, then settled in New York. She sold her first painting in 2004, when she was 89 years old. Her reputation as a painter grew, and she was given a retrospective at the Whitney in 2016.
The Blanton mural reflects the architectural lines, angles and geometric abstraction of her painting style and creates a welcoming entrance to the gallery.
Carmen Herrera died on February 12, 2022, at age 106.
The Blanton Museum is holding a grand opening on May 13th to celebrate to the revitalization of the museum’s grounds.
Ironically, the Blanton also houses Ellsworth Kelly’s last work, the magnificent 2,715- square-foot stone building with colored glass windows that Kelly and his husband, photographer jack Shear donated to the museum in 2015.
An exhibit of Kelly’s drawings will be on exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago from July 1 through October 23, 2023. Ellsworth Kelly: Portrait Drawings showcases over 100 works that the artist did during his 70-year career. Alongside self-portraits are drawings of friends, fellow artists, like Robert Indiana, and many unidentified figures from Kelly’s early years.
One of the largest retrospectives of Kelly’s works will be on view at the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, just a 30 minute drive from Washington, D.C. His abstract paintings and sculptures will be on exhibit in commemoration of the centennial of his birth. Ellsworth Kelly at 100 will be on exhibit from May 4, 2023 until March 2024.
Please contact us if you would like more information about the works of Carmen Herrera and Ellsworth Kelly available at VFA.
References:
Barbara Noe Kennedy. Glenstone is an unmissable, immersive cultural destination. Here’s why you need to visit this spring. Lonely Planet. March 22, 2023.
Jessica Fuentes. The Blanton Announces Opening Date for New Grounds. Glasstire (Texas Visual Art). February 26, 2023.
Hilarie M. Sheets. Blanton Museum Redesign Aims to Raise Its Profile. The New York Times. January 12, 2021.
