A Pioneer of Mid-20th-Century Cuban Modernism | Loló Soldevilla, 1901-1971

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1955

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, undated

Loló Soldevilla – Velocidad No. 2, 1954

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1953

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, Celestial Realm, 1956

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1956

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1954

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1954

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1956

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, undated

Loló Soldevilla, Índigo de Opus #16, 1955

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, undated

Loló Soldevilla, Homage to Theo V. Doesburg, Composition No. 7, The Three Graces Variation, 1950

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1951

Loló Soldevilla, Formas elementares nº15, 1954

Loló Soldevilla, Untitled, 1951

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Born in 1901 in Havana, Cuba, Soldevilla was an avid painter, sculptor, collage artist and draughtsman. She began painting in 1948, and in 1949 traveled to Paris as Cuba’s cultural attache, something which allowed her to travel extensively throughout Europe and Latin America, influencing her art style and career immensely. In Paris, she was influenced by the European avant-garde, most notably abstraction.  In 1956, Soldevilla along with her husband and fellow artist Pedro de Oraá, returned to Cuba and founded Galeria Color-Luz, an artistic space solely focused on the promotion of abstract art. Oraá and Loló, along with Romanian-born artist Sandu Darie among others, were the pioneers of Concretism or Cuban Abstraction in 1950s Cuba, as well as the founders of the group  Los Diez Pintores Concretos (The 10 concrete painters) or known simply as Los Diez (the ten).

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Soldevilla graduated from the Falcón Conservatory for singing and the violin, founding the

short-lived group La Orchestra de Loló (Lolo’s Orchestra) before taking up painting in 1948.

During the 1930s, she was a seminal political activist, enduring detainment for participation in

several political rallies, as well as imprisonment in the Prison for Women in Guanabacoa, in

 1935 for her positions against the Machado dictatorship. She also helped found the Partido

Aprista of Cuba, along with Enrique de la Osa and Guillermo de Zéndegui among others and

integrated the Executive National Committee for this political organization. In 1949, she

 traveled to Paris as a cultural attaché for the Cuban Embassy and enrolled in the Académie

de la Grande Chaumière, where she started to develop works that would later on that year,

encompass her first two shows. Among her returns to Cuba, Soldevilla traveled extensively

during her career, she was influenced by the avant-garde of several countries in Europe and

 Latin America including Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain,

Austria, Germany, Venezuela, and Brazil among others.

Loló Soldevilla, 1901-1971