Luchita Hurtado facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Luchita Hurtado
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Luchita Hurtado in 1973
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| Born |
Luisa Amelia Garcia Rodriguez Hurtado
November 28, 1920 |
| Died | August 13, 2020 (aged 99) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
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| Other names | Luchita de Solar, Luchita Paalen |
| Occupation | Artist |
| Years active | 1940s–2020 |
| Spouse(s) | Daniel de Solar, Wolfgang Paalen, Lee Mullican |
| Children | 4, including Matt Mullican |
Luchita Hurtado (born Luisa Amelia García Rodriguez Hurtado; November 28, 1920 – August 13, 2020) was a painter from Venezuela. She lived in Santa Monica, California and Arroyo Seco, New Mexico.
Luchita moved to the United States when she was a child. She started making art in high school and continued for over 80 years. However, she only became widely known for her work later in her life. Her art often showed strong ideas about the environment and women's rights. It also combined styles from many different art movements and cultures.
In 2019, Time magazine named Luchita Hurtado one of the 100 Most Influential People.
Contents
Early Life and Family
Luchita Hurtado was born in Maiquetía, Venezuela, on November 28, 1920. Her mother moved to New York with Luchita's two aunts. They worked as seamstresses. In 1928, Luchita and her older sister joined them in New York. Her father stayed in Venezuela.
Education and First Marriage
Luchita studied fine art at Washington Irving High School. She also took classes at the Art Students League of New York. She volunteered at La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper. There, she met her first husband, Daniel de Solar, a journalist from Chile.
Luchita and Daniel married when she was 18. They had two children together. For a short time, they moved to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to start a newspaper. They later moved back to New York. There, they became friends with many Latin American artists and journalists, like Rufino Tamayo.
Later Marriages and Children
Luchita and Daniel divorced in 1942. She then married Wolfgang Paalen, an artist. They were introduced by Isamu Noguchi. Sadly, Luchita's son from her first marriage, Pablo, died from polio at age 5. She wanted another child, but Paalen did not. So, they divorced.
During this time, Luchita became friends with many more artists. One friend was Ailes Gilmour, who was the half-sister of Isamu Noguchi. Luchita and Noguchi became close, often visiting art galleries together.
In 1951, Hurtado moved to Los Angeles with another artist, Lee Mullican. They married later that decade. They stayed married until Lee's death in 1998. Together, they had two sons: Matt Mullican, who is an artist, and John Mullican, who is a film director.
Luchita Hurtado passed away on August 13, 2020, at her home in Santa Monica, California. She died of natural causes, just a few weeks before her 100th birthday.
Art Career
In 1944, Luchita Hurtado created window displays and painted murals for Bloomingdale's department store. She also worked as a freelance illustrator for Condé Nast and as a muralist for Lord & Taylor in New York.
Early Art and Feminist Groups
In 1946, she traveled to Mexico with her second husband, Wolfgang Paalen. They researched pre-Columbian art (art from before Christopher Columbus arrived). Luchita took photographs that were later published in a magazine called Cahiers d'art in 1952.
In the 1970s, Luchita Hurtado started a group for women artists called the Los Angeles Council of Women Artists. In 1972, she showed her work in a special art show called "Invisible/Visible" at the Long Beach Museum of Art. This show focused on feminist art. One of her paintings, Self Portrait (1971), showed her looking down at herself. Even though she supported feminist ideas, she chose not to join the Guerrilla Girls, another feminist art group.
Becoming Well-Known
For many years, Luchita Hurtado's art was not widely known. This changed in 2015. Ryan Good, who worked for her third husband, Lee Mullican, found many paintings signed "LH" while organizing Lee's art. He asked Luchita about them, and she told him she was the artist.
Ryan Good showed these paintings to Paul Soto, who owned an art gallery. Paul Soto then held Luchita's second solo art show, called Luchita Hurtado: Selected Works, 1942–1952. This show ran from November 2016 to January 2017. After this, her art career really took off.
Her work was shown in the Hammer Museum's "Made in L.A." exhibition in 2018. The L.A. Times called her the "hot new discovery" of the show. Her art was very well-received by critics. Her work also caught the eye of Hans Ulrich Obrist, a famous art curator. He organized her first international solo exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries in London, called Luchita Hurtado: I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn.
Luchita continued to be active in the art world until she passed away. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art held a major show of her work in February 2020. Many visitors were surprised by her age because her art felt so modern.
In 2022, Hurtado's work was also part of the "Women Painting Women" exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
Exhibitions
- Hauser & Wirth, New York, United States, Luchita Hurtado Together Forever, September 10 - October 31, 2020
- Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, United Kingdom, I live I die I will be reborn, May 23 - October 20, 2019
- Hammer Museum, Made in L.A. 2018, Jun 3 – September 2, 2018
- Annenberg Community Beach House, Santa Monica (2017)
- Park View Gallery, Los Angeles (2016)
- Night Club Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (2016)
- Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, California (1994)
- Grandview Gallery, The Woman's Building, Los Angeles (1974)
- Long Beach Museum of Art, Invisible/Visible: 21 Artists (1972)
- Tally Richards Gallery, Taos, New Mexico (1970)
- Paul Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles (1953)
Collections
Luchita Hurtado's art can be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.
Recognition
She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2019.
See also
In Spanish: Luchita Hurtado para niños
