Mercedes Clementina Marta del Carmen Pardo Ponte,[1] known as Mercedes Pardo (July 29, 1921 – March 24, 2005) was a Venezuelan abstract art painter.[2][3][4][5]

Mercedes Pardo
Born(1921-07-29)July 29, 1921
Caracas, Venezuela
DiedMarch 24, 2005(2005-03-24) (aged 83)
San Antonio de Los Altos, Venezuela
Known forPainting
MovementAbstract Art
Spouses
Marco Bonta
(m. 1945, divorced)
Alejandro Otero
(m. 1951)

Biography

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Pardo was born July 29, 1921 (or July 20, 1921, according to her obituary in El País[6]) in Caracas, Venezuela. By age 13 she began taking free classes at the Academia de Bellas Artes.[5]

In 1941 she joined the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas in Caracas.[4] 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.[7][8]

In 1945 she married Marco Bonta, a professor of stained glass and mural painting. Their marriage was short.[5]

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.[5]

In 1951 she married the painter Alejandro Otero.[5]

She died on March 24, 2005, in San Antonio de Los Altos, Venezuela.[5]

Legacy

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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.[9]

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.[10]

Exhibitions[5]

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  • 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[5]

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  • 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

References

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  1. ^ "Mercedes Clementina Marta del Carmen Pardo Ponte". geni.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  2. ^ "Pardo Mercedes". Art&Art. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  3. ^ "Mercedes Pardo". MutualArt.com. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  4. ^ a b Boudon, Lawrence (2002). Handbook of Latin American Studies v. 58. p. 68. ISBN 9780292709102. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h "Pardo, Mercedes". Wikihistoria del arte Venezolano. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
  6. ^ "Mercedes Pardo, pintora (obituary)". El País. 28 March 2005. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
  7. ^ Puerto, Cecilia (1996). Latin American Women Artists, Kahlo and Look who Else: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood. p. 189. ISBN 9780313289347.
  8. ^ "Mercedes Pardo : 1 x 9 / Margarita DAmico". Documents of Latin American and Latino Art (in Spanish). Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Archived from the original on 23 June 2019.
  9. ^ Benko, Susana. "Opening of the Fundación Alejandro Otero-Mercedes Pardo". ArtNexus. Retrieved 23 December 2017.

Further reading

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