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Selected Works

Joaquín Torres-García, Representación de la Tierra-Pachamama [Representation of Earth-Pachamama], 1944

Joaquín Torres-García, Representación de la Tierra-Pachamama [Representation of Earth-Pachamama], 1944

Oil on wood, 20 x 34 5/8 x 2 inches (76.2 x 87.9 x 5.1 cm)

Joaquín Torres-García, Arte constructivo universal [Universal Constructive Art], 1942

Joaquín Torres-García, Arte constructivo universal [Universal Constructive Art], 1942

Tempera on wood, 60 9/16 x 60 1/2 inches (153.8 x 153.7 cm)

Joaquín Torres-García, Desnudo de mujer con frontón [Nude Woman with Pediment], 1926

Joaquín Torres-García, Desnudo de mujer con frontón [Nude Woman with Pediment], 1926

Tempera on canvas, 47 x 29 inches (119.4 x 73.7 cm)

 

Joaquín Torres-García, Objet plastique (Barco abstracto) [Plastic Object (Abstract Ship)], 1928

Joaquín Torres-García, Objet plastique (Barco abstracto) [Plastic Object (Abstract Ship)], 1928

Oil on wood, 15 5/8 x 9 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches (39.7 x 24.1 x 3.8 cm)

Joaquín Torres-García, Constructif avec homme blanc [Constructive Composition with White Man], 1931

Joaquín Torres-García, Constructif avec homme blanc [Constructive Composition with White Man], 1931

Tempera on canvas, 28 13/16 x 23 15/16 inches (73.2 x 60.8 cm)

Installations

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right, top row:

Suits, 1920

 

Downtown New York, 1919–21

 

Untitled, 1928

 

Untitled (Constructivo elementos de naturaleza) [Constructive Elements of Nature], 1937

 

Dibujo de Barcelona No. 10 [Barcelona Drawing No. 10], 1916–17

 

Untitled, 1934

 

Untitled, 1936

 

Composición [Composition], 1930

 

Left to right, middle row: 

My Book of New York, 1920

 

Untitled, 1938

 

Módulo de la Creación: El Hombre Abstracto [Creation Module:
The Abstract Man],
1933

 

Untitled, 1931

 

Tableau [Diagram], 1930

 

Untitled, 1928

 

Left to right, bottom row: 

Untitled AB 51, 1935

 

Portado cruz y éxtasis de la pasion [Cross and Ecstasy of Passion], 1937

 

Untitled, 1928

 

Untitled, 1929

 

Untitled, 1932

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Representación Solar—Padre Inti [Solar Representation— Father Inti], 1944

 

Objet plastique (Madera abstracta) [Plastic Object (Abstract Wood)], 1930

 

Objet plastique (Barco abstracto) [Plastic Object (Abstract Ship)], 1928

 

Objet plastique (Escultura abstracta) [Plastic Object (Abstract Sculpture)], 1929

 

Representación de la Tierra- Pachamama [Representation of Earth-Pachamama], 1944

 

Representación de la Idea— La Idea [Representation of the Idea—Idea],1942

 

Objet plastique (Formas policromadas) [Plastic Object (Polychromatic Forms)], 1924

 

Objet plastique (Forme rouge) [Plastic Object (Red Form)], 1930

 

Objet plastique (Forma blanca superpuesta sobre rojo) [Plastic Object (White Shape Superimposed on Red)], 1931

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right, top to bottom:

Composición [Composition], 1930

 

Untitled, 1928

 

Representación Solar— Padre Inti [Solar Representation— Father Inti], 1944

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Formas [Forms], 1937

 

Peinture constructive [Constructive Painting], 1931

 

Constructif avec homme blanc [Constructive Composition with White Man], 1931

 

Arte constructivo universal [Universal Constructive Art], 1942

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Formas [Forms], 1937

 

Peinture constructive [Constructive Painting], 1931

 

Constructif avec homme blanc [Constructive Composition with White Man], 1931

 

Arte constructivo universal [Universal Constructive Art], 1942

 

Composición cosmica con hombre abstracto [Cosmic Composition with Abstract Man], 1933

 

Eléments universels et le monde de la nature [Universal Elements and the World of Nature], 1932

 

Monumento constructivo [Constructive Monument], 1943

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Arte constructivo universal [Universal Constructive Art], 1942

 

Composición cosmica con hombre abstracto [Cosmic Composition with Abstract Man], 1933

 

Eléments universels et le monde de la nature [Universal Elements and the World of Nature], 1932

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Puerto constructivo hombre grande [Constructive Port, Large Man], 1941

 

Objetos sueltos sobre fondo gris [Floating Objects on Gray Ground], 1943

 

Arte universal [Universal Art], 1949

 

Objet plastique (Objeto construido) [Plastic Object (Constructed Object)], 1938

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Objet plastique (Construction) [Plastic Object (Construction)], 1930

 

Forma cuadrangular estructurada [Structured Quadrangular Shape], 1933

 

Estructure avec forme T [Structure with “T” Form], 1930

 

Puerto constructivo hombre grande [Constructive Port, Large Man], 1941

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Objet plastique (Objeto construido) [Plastic Object (Constructed Object)], 1938

 

Composición abstracta / Masque abstrait [Abstract Composition / Abstract Mask], 1930

 

Constructivo [Constructive Composition], 1931

 

Forma abstracta sobre fondo gris [Abstract Form on Gray Background], 1938

 

Formes abstraites metaphysiques [Abstract Metaphysical Forms], 1930

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García

Installation view of The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García at Acquavella Galleries from April 12 - June 29, 2018.

 

Left to right:

Tres guras clásicas [Three Classical Figures], 1926

 

Jeune lle au col blanc [Young Girl with White Collar], 1928

 

Hombre con nariz puntiaguda [Man with Pointed Nose], 1939

 

Paysage avec charette rouge [Landscape with Red Wagon], 1928

 

Dos mujeres [Two Women], 1928

Press Release

New York, NY - Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García, an exhibition comprised of over sixty paintings, sculptures and works on paper from 1896 to 1949. Drawn from the private collection of the family of the artist, this group of works has never been exhibited as a whole, although individual pieces have been loaned to major museums across Europe and South America. This show represents the largest and most comprehensive survey in an American gallery since Joaquín Torres-García curated his own exhibition at The Sidney Janis Gallery in 1950.

Best known for his semi-abstract paintings of universal symbols that emphasize the contrast and synthesis between "classical" and "modern" beauty, Torres-García defies easy categorization. This exhibition demonstrates his protean reach as an artist, pushing not only the boundaries of abstraction but also bringing modern vitality and innovation to landscape, cityscape, and portraiture, themes that preoccupied him throughout his working life in Barcelona, New York, Paris, Madrid, and Montevideo.

Born in Montevideo in 1874, Torres-García moved to his father’s native Spain in 1891. As a young artist in Barcelona, he achieved early success painting murals for the Catalan Government and working with Antoni Gaudí on the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. After visiting Paris—where he met with Pablo Picasso and his former student Joan Miró—Torres-García arrived in New York in 1920 as a pioneering modernist. Exhibiting with Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Stuart Davis at the Whitney Studio Club and the Society of Independent Artists, his work was bought by Katherine Dreier and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

Returning to Paris in 1926, Torres-García founded the avant-garde group Circle and Square which included Hans Arp, Wassily Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, and Kurt Schwitters. While in Paris he was inspired by indigenous art from the Americas, Africa, and Oceania which reinforced his vision of symbols and cosmic order. In his later years in Montevideo, he founded several schools of modern art, including The School of the South, which was instrumental in bringing European and North American modernism to South America. Torres-García was widely admired by his fellow artists as a global modernist; long after his death, Miró acknowledged his teacher’s influence, sending Torres-García’s widow a photograph of his paintings from a museum exhibition inscribed, “Do you see the forms and shapes of the master?  They are still with me today.”

A fully illustrated hardcover catalogue will accompany this exhibition and will include a critical essay by the distinguished art historian Tomás Llorens Serra, former Director of the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, in addition to a text by Abigail McEwen, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Maryland. The book will also include a fictional short story, “Lives of the Artists,” by the award-winning writer Frederic Tuten, author of Tintin in the New World and Van Gogh’s Bad Café.

MEDIA CONTACTS

For interviews, background and images, please contact:

David Simantov
Blue Medium, Inc
Tel: +1-212-675-1800 david@bluemedium.com

Emily Crowley
Acquavella Galleries
Tel: +1-212-734-6300
emily@acquavellagalleries.com

Photograph of Joaquín Torres-García
Joaquín Torres-García
The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García cover
The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García
April - May 2018
Joaquín Torres-Garciá, Arte constructive universal [Universal Constructive Art], 1942
The Art Newspaper
"Joaquín Torres-García, mapped and remapped" by Mostafa Heddaya June 18, 2018

Acquavella Galleries' exhibition of the Uruguay-born Modernist is a primer for the unitiated and a treasury of rarely seen gems.

Joaquín Torres-García, Representatión de la Tierra-Pachamama [Representation of Earth-Pachamama], 1944
The New York Times
10 Galleries to Visit Now on the Upper East Side April 27, 2018

By Martha Schwendener

The Upper East Side — the area called "above East 50th Street" on gallery apps like See Saw and Artforum — is thriving. It’s also experiencing an art-fair effect, with international galleries opening project spaces or satellite galleries in a highly concentrated area: where collectors and curators stay when visiting New York. The galleries that have opened additional spaces on the Upper East Side in recent years include Almine Rech, Boers-Li, Clearing, Galeria Nara Roesler, Galerie Buchholz, Mendes Wood DM and, next month, Kurimanzutto, from Mexico City. I chose shows that were viewable at the time, and I could have provided a list of another 10 galleries just as strong — and another 10 after that. Here is what you can see right now.

ACQUAVELLA GALLERIES through May 25; 18 East 79th Street, acquavellagalleries.com. The most traditional European gallery experience can be had at Acquavella Galleries, housed in a French neo-Classical-style townhouse. “The Worlds of Joaquín Torres-García” offers a survey of the work of this Uruguayan-born artist (1874-1949), who lived in Paris and New York during vital creative periods. A collage with a label for bullion “en cubitos” playfully shows off his Cubist knowledge, while a pair of painted overalls titled “New York Suit” (1920s) feels very New York Dada. The rest of the gallery has paintings made of grids filled with images of architectural fragments and symbols from history, various religions or perhaps dreams.