América del Sur

Artist name

Artist year born

1917

Artist year deceased

2015

Artwork make date

1990

Artwork title translation

South America

Artwork material

acrylic
canvas

Artwork dimensions

height: 130cm
width: 100cm

Artwork type (categories)

Painting

Accession method

Donated by María Freire 1994

Accession number

25-1994

Label text

This work belongs to a series collectively entitled América del Sur, which María Freire began in the 1990s. Freire consistently works in series, and this one was also a return to and reworking of an earlier series, called Sudamérica.

Sudamérica was exhibited in Brussels in 1959; despite its title, the abstract forms that it contained were not inspired by South America but by medieval European locks and keys. Freire herself had called the series Llaves (Keys). The title 'Southamerica' was in fact given by a public who perhaps imagined that the boldly coloured abstract forms of the paintings were inspired by the geometric patterns traditionally associated with the art and architecture of South America. In América del Sur therefore Freire incorporates an assumption about the precedent series by reclaiming it as the title for its reworked form.

Joanne Harwood

Last updated date

2008