Loló Soldevilla

LOLÓ SOLDEVILLA Dolores Soldevilla Nieto (Pinar del Río, Cuba 1901-Havana, 1971).
Untitled. 1955.
High relief in bronze.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Attached certificates of authenticity issued by Martha Flora Carranza and Pedro de Oraá.
Measurements: 21 x 37.5 x 1.5 cm; 48.5 x 32 x 3 cm (frame).

Metal sculptures, often abstract and sometimes mobile or interactive, were the artistic field in which Loló Sodevilla is most remembered. Here we show an outstanding exponent of her experimental vocation and plastic intuition. The author uses forged and assembled metals, thus extolling the values of the artisan tradition and Cuban culture.

Loló Soldevilla's artistic career always stood out for her stylistic and technical experimentation, creating works in different media such as sculpture, engraving and drawing. She was the first sculptor in Cuba, and one of the first in Latin America, to introduce works that were completely interactive.

Her artistic career began in 1948, influenced by her friendship with Wifredo Lam, who encouraged and supported her in her beginnings in the world of painting. In 1949 he settled in Paris, where he studied at the Grande Chaumière Academy, making frequent trips and exhibitions in Cuba to show his work. In 1951 she entered the workshop of Dewasne and Pillet, where she remained for two years, and attended a course on engraving techniques by Hayter and Cochet, maintaining and promoting creative exchanges with the School of Paris. Linked to the 26th of July Movement, she was forced to live a clandestine life, since during the pre-revolutionary period she collaborated in Diario de la Marina, Carteles, Información, El País, Avance, Porvenir, Tiempo en Cuba and Survey, as well as in the Parisian publications Combat and Arts. After the revolutionary triumph of 1959 she joined the newspaper Revolución as editor and during the 1960-61 academic year she established herself as professor of plastic arts at the School of Architecture of the University of Havana. From that moment on Dolores Soldevilla combined her artistic career with her teaching work at the University's School of Architecture and at the Granma newspaper. Thanks to her aesthetic approaches, the Grupo Espacio emerged and she was a member of the Diez Pintores Concretos group; she was a member of the UPEC and the UNEAC and collaborated in Bohemia. During his life his work was exhibited in relevant artistic spaces such as the Palace of Fine Arts of Cuba, in Caracas (Venezuela), Paris, in Valencia, Valladolid (Spain), Czechoslovakia, etc, achieving a great recognition of his work at a global level. Today his work is preserved in numerous private collections around the world and in institutions such as the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba (where the main collection is kept).