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Composición rojo y negro [Red and Black Composition]
Composición rojo y negro [Red and Black Composition]

Composición rojo y negro [Red and Black Composition]

Primary (Uracoa, Venezuela, 1926–Caracas, Venezuela, 2018)
NationalityVenezuelan, South America
Date1956
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsAdditional Dimension: 66 15/16 × 27 9/16 in. (170 × 70 cm)
Credit LineBlanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in honor of Richard Shiff, 2018.117
Rights Statement
Collection AreaLatin American Art
Object number2018.117
On View
On view
Locations
  • exhibition  BMA, Gallery, C7 - Susman Galleries
Collection Highlight
Label Text
Mateo Manaure was a key figure in the history of abstract art in Venezuela. After studying art in Caracas, he settled in Paris in the late 1940s, where he cofounded the group Los Disidentes [The Dissidents] along with other compatriots seeking a groundbreaking renovation of Venezuelan art through abstraction. During the 1950s, after returning to his homeland, he worked on artistic projects that were integrated into architecture, producing important abstract murals for the campus of the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas. The geometric style of these murals is echoed in Composición rojo y negro, which features irregular black forms organized in dynamic juxtapositions over a vibrant red field. For Manaure, abstract art—either deployed in the urban landscape or in the form of a painting—actively symbolized notions of progress and cultural modernization.