Oct 09, 2018
Lucy Tejada’s 98th Birthday
This Doodle’s Key Themes
"My art was always more imaginative.,I would think through the composition and capture it, the colors emerging according to my state of mind.”
-Lucy Tejada
Contemporary painter Lucy Tejada was born on this day in Pereira, Colombia. She attended Javeriana University in Bogota, where she discovered the work of Columbian artist Alejandro Obregón Rosės, which had a profound impact on her life. “I started going to the teacher's exhibitions all the time,” she recalled in an interview, “until one day he came out and asked me: ‘Why do you come so much?’” The elder artist encouraged her to enroll in the School of Fine arts, and she continued her artistic education at the School of Graphic Arts of Madrid, achieving her first solo exhibition in 1947.
During the 1950s Tejada traveled through Europe, immersing herself in great collections like the Madrid’s Prado Museum and the Louvre in Paris. She exhibited her work in the Venice Biennial as well as in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, emerging as an important figure in South American contemporary art. After her travels through Europe she returned to Colombia, building a house in Cali where she raised her two children.
Alejandro Obregón Rosės described her as “painter of the tenderness.” In 2007, Colombia’s Culture Ministry awarded her the Medal of Cultural Merit in recognition of her 50 year career. Her legacy lives on with the Lucy Tejada Cultural Center, which opened this year in Pereira. In accordance with the artist’s wishes, Tejada’s family donated a collection of 163 pieces of her work to be exhibited in the city as well..
Feliz Cumpleaños, Lucy Tejada!
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