Artist
Mercedes Pardo
Venezuelan, 1921–2005
Mercedes Pardo was a Venezuelan artist. 1 work is cataloged here, principally at Museum of Modern Art. Mercedes Pardo was born in Caracas.
Overview
Mercedes Clementina Marta del Carmen Pardo Ponte, known as Mercedes Pardo (July 29, 1921 – March 24, 2005) was a Venezuelan abstract art painter.
Biography
Pardo was born July 29, 1921 (or July 20, 1921, according to her obituary in El País) in Caracas, Venezuela. By age 13 she began taking free classes at the Academia de Bellas Artes. In 1941 she joined the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas in Caracas. She was active in painting, printmaking, and collage, and in 1991 the National Art Gallery in Caracas held an exhibition to review her work from 1941 to 1991. In 1945 she married Marco Bonta, a professor of stained glass and mural painting. Their marriage was short. In 1947 she attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Santiago in Chile where she had her first one-woman show. In 1949 she moved to Paris and attended the École du Louvre. In 1951 she married the painter Alejandro Otero. She died on March 24, 2005, in San Antonio de Los Altos, Venezuela.
Legacy
The Fundación Alejandro Otero-Mercedes Pardo was established in 2016. It is located at Alejandro Otero and Mercedes Pardo's house in San Antonio de Los Altos. In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.
Exhibitions
Source:
1947 Pacific Room, Santiago de Chile 1962 MBA 1964 "Signs", Sala Mendoza 1967 "Signs", Librería Cruz del Sur, Caracas 1969 "1 x 9 color of silkscreen", MBA 1970 "Recent works of Mercedes Pardo", Sala Mendoza 1971 Center of Fine Arts, Maracaibo 1974 Aele Gallery, Madrid 1977 Adler Gallery / Castillo, Caracas / El Parque Art Center, Valencia, Edo. Carabobo / Pecanins Gallery, Mexico City 1978 "From the workshop of Mercedes Pardo today, National Art Gallery", Caracas / Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City 1979 "Color, skin, meditated presence: anthological exhibition by Mercedes Pardo", GAN / Galería Adler / Castillo, Caracas 1980 "Mercedes Pardo in Margarita: paintings / serigraphs", Museo Francisco Narváez 1983 "Inesauribile Venezia", Sagitario Gallery, Caracas 1991 "Moradas del color", GAN 1993 "Graphic work of Mercedes Pardo", Consulate of Venezuela, New York 1994 "Graphic work of Mercedes Pardo", The Warm Spaces 1995 "Graphic work of Mercedes Pardo", MRE 1996 Sacred Museum, Caracas 2000 "Mercedes Pardo, 1951–2000", MAO / "Color and shape", GAN 2005 House of the Culture Village of the Sea, Porlamar, Edo. Nueva Esparta / Unimet
Awards
Source:
1942 Honorable mention in painting, III Official Salon 1944 José Loreto Arismendi Prize, V Official Show 1960 Puebla de Bolívar Prize, XXI Official Salon 1961 Prize of the Fina Gómez Foundation, XXII Official Show 1964 National Prize for Applied Arts (shared with Alejandro Otero), XXV Salón Oficial 1966 Enamel Prize, International Exhibition of Artistic Crafts, Stuttgart, Germany 1978 National Prize of Plastic Arts, Caracas 1980 Special Edition Purchase Award, World Print III, San Francisco, California, United States 1991 Armando Reverón Award, AVAP
Collections represented
Museum
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