Rago Auctions

A critical proponent of the concretismo movement to emerge from mid-century Cuba, Loló Soldevilla created a body of work that blended geometric abstraction with a charged — and optimistic — political narrative. "The transatlantic horizons of Cuban art appeared endless in the 1950s," Abigail McEwen wrote for Hyperallergic, "as an emerging generation of artists leveraged abstraction in their pursuit of universalism and [for] a place in the international avant-garde." A relative latecomer to painting, Soldevilla began to use the visual language of triangles, circles, and squares by the early 1950s. She quickly established herself as a driving force behind "Concrete art," which adherents described as art that had no basis in either nature nor symbolism. In 1957, Soldevilla co-founded the Galería Color Luz with Pedro de Oraá, hosting exhibitions to promote international abstract artists and ideas. In 1959, the gallery hosted Los Diez Pintores Concretos, which was hugely influential in establishing recognition of the Concrete art movement at a global scale. Of the ten artists featured, Soldevilla was the only woman to be included, and she is today credited as a revolutionary force in the development of both abstraction and Cuban art.