Marisol

Of Venezuelan decent, Marisol (1930-2016) was born in Paris, attended high school in Los Angeles, studied for a year in Paris at École des Beaux Arts and the Académie Julien before moving to New York in 1950 to study painting with Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League.

In 1951 she moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts to study with Hans Hoffman until 1954. In 1953 she devoted herself to sculpture, making terracotta figurines, carving figures from wood, and creating assemblages incorportating found objects and plaster of her own face. Because her work combined social satire and descriptive realism, it was initially linked to pop art. Marisol’s work was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s The Art of Assemblage (1961), the Haag’s Gemeentemuseum’s New Realism (1964), and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Annual Exhibition (1964); In 1968 she represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennale.

At the suggestion of Larry Rivers, Marisol began working at ULAE in 1964, and by the following year had completed five lithographs juxtaposing tracings of the artist’s hands and feet with outlines of distinctive feminine objects, such as a purse or high heeled shoes. Between 1970-1973 she produced a body of work based on her extended travels to Asia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, frequently incorporating unorthodox materials into her prints.