July 29, 2022
“Color is an instrument of a vast, infinite, inexhaustible range and that has been what I have expressed, what I have wanted to say in art.” – Mercedes Pardo, 1979
Mercedes Pardo (1921–2005) was a Venezuelan artist, teacher, and pioneer of abstract painting in her home country. As the writer María Ramírez Ribes describes in a 1991 article, Pardo’s work “seeks to be presence, sensation, and color. There is no criticism nor message in her work, only experiences and encounters with the vastness of light and its chromatic possibilities” (1331187). The ICAA recently added more than 30 documents on Pardo to Documents Project spanning major milestones of her career, available here.
These include coverage of Pardo’s winning the 1960 Premio Puebla de Bolívar at the XXI Salón Oficial de Arte (1331692); coverage of the 1969 exhibition 1×9 (1331596) at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas; an interview with the artist on the occasion of her first retrospective, Color: piel, presencia meditada, in 1979 at the Galeria de Arte Nacional (GAN) in Caracas (1331363); poet and essayist Ida Gramcko’s celebration of Pardo being awarded the prestigious Premio Armando Reverón in 1991 (1331139); and coverage of Mercedes Pardo: Moradas del Color (1325266) a 1991 retrospective of more than 250 works at the GAN.
The Otero Pardo Foundation today promotes the legacy of Pardo and her husband, Alejandro Otero (1921–90), “two Venezuelan artists who achieved most of their creative work side by side.” The Foundation graciously provided access to this selection of documents, and the ICAA is proud to expand our holdings on this important figure in Venezuelan modernism.
Lillian Michel is the Digital Experience Specialist at the ICAA.
