Private Collection, Havana Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
London, David Zwirner, Concrete Cuba, September 5 - October 3, 2015 New York, David Zwirner, Concrete Cuba, January 7 - February 20, 2016
Literature
Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s, exh., cat., David Zwirner, New York, 2016, p. 62 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
Despite his short-lived practice in concretism, Pedro Álvarez is without a doubt one of the most pertinent concrete artists of the younger generation during the late 1950s. Known to be part of “under thirties”, Álvarez joined Los Diez Pintores Concretos after being discovered by pioneering concrete artist Mario Carreño during a time when Cuba experienced a cultural upheaval as Fulgencio Batista led a coup d’état. Cuba experienced the rapid growth of urbanization and an international backlash, resulting in new modes of communication cultivated by living artists influenced by these political shifts.
Álvarez studied in the International School of Havana, emulating obsolete forms of geometric abstraction and then developing a more contemporary style of considered as post-revolutionary concretism. Before joining the radical group, Álvarez exhibited his work in various national art salons in Cuba followed by comprehensive exhibitions with pioneering concrete artists such as Wifredo Arcay, Mario Carreño, Martínez Pedro and Sandú Darié. Álvarez has been exhibited in Art Cubain Contemporain alongside Carmen Herrera and Wifredo Arcay in Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris in 1951- the first exhibition on Cuban artists since 1920.