Marisol
Born 1930, Paris
Died 2016, New York
1949 Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris
1950 Art Students League, New York
1950-54 New School for Social Research, New York
Selected museum exhibitions: Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (2014); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York (2001); Hakone Open-Air Museum, Kanagawa, Japan (1995); National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. (1991); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (1977); Worchester Art Museum, Massachusetts (1971); Venice Biennale (1968); Bojimans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam (1968); Arts Club of Chicago (1965)
Selected honors: Medal of Honor, National Arts Club (1995); Premio Gabriela Mistral, Organization of American States (1997); Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Venezuela (1983); American Academy of Arts and Letters Award (1978); Award of Excellence in Design, Arts Commission of New York City (1958)
Selected public collections: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; Whitney Museum of American Art
First achieving critical and popular acclaim in the 1960s, Marisol Escobar created art that combined abstraction and figuration with observant wit. She was best known for sculpture that combined wooden and multimedia elements and for her ingenious works on paper. Noel, 1963, features repeated forms that radiate from the work’s center, which upon closer inspection are in fact a multitude of fingertips, an example of the formal power and inventive humor characteristic of Marisol’s art.