Celeste Agustina Woss y Gil (5 May 1891 – 1985) was a

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

painter, educator, and feminist activist, remembered as one of the most influential Dominican artists from the 20th century. Born in

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional) , webs ...

and daughter to former president Alejandro Woss y Gil, she was 12 years old when her family left the country in exile after her father’s second presidential term ended in 1903. She spent the rest of her early years living and studying art in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

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, and

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.Danilo de los Santos. Memoria de la Pintura Dominicana. (Colección Centenario Grupo León Jimenes) 8v: vol 2. Grupo León Jimenes. Santo Domingo, 2003. pg 58 Her style fuses

post-impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction aga ...

influences from

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with a distinctly Caribbean flavor. She is known for her nudes of Dominican Republic women and scenes of bustling marketplaces. In 1924, she put on a solo exhibition of her work, making it a landmark show for Dominican Republic art history, being the first woman to do so in that country. Woss y Gil is especially remembered as an influential educator who would go on to teach some of the most well known native artists of the 20th century. She opened a small art school in Santo Domingo in 1924, and later a painting and drawing academy in 1931. In August 1942, Woss y Gil joined the newly established National School of Fine Arts as founding faculty along with artists

Josep Gausachs Josep Gausachs Armengol (1889–1959), better known as Josep Gausachs or José Gausachs, was a Catalan artist active in Spain, France and the Dominican Republic. Early years Born in 1889 in Barcelona, Spain, Gausachs had a difficult childhood. ...

George Hausdorf George Hausdorf (1894-1959) was a German artist who worked in Germany, the Dominican Republic and the United States. He produced works in oils, watercolors, pastels and charcoal, as well as engravings. Subjects included landscapes, still lifes, ...

José Vela Zanetti José Vela Zanetti (May 27, 1913 – January 4, 1999) was a Spanish painter and muralist who worked in Spain, the Dominican Republic and the United States. Early years Vela Zanetti was born in Milagros (Province of Burgos), Spain on May 27, 1913 ...

, and Manolo Pascual, later becoming the director. Among her students were artists

Gilberto Hernández Ortega Gilberto Hernández Ortega (21 December 1923 – 23 October 1979) was an artist from the Dominican Republic. He is considered a leading painting, painter of his generation. Early life and education He was born in Baní, Peravia Province, in ...

and Delia Weber. Woss y Gil died in 1985, aged 94–95, in

Early life and education

Woss y Gil was born on May 5, 1891 in

to María Altagracia Ricart Pérez and two-time former president Alejandro Woss y Gil (1885-1887 and 1903). Alejandro Woss y Gil served briefly as president in 1903; because he was removed from office after only a few short months, the Woos y Gil family left for France in exile, living there until 1912 before moving to Cuba. Her initial art studies began under the guidance of Abelardo Rodríguez Urdaneta in Santo Domingo. Living in Cuba, Woss y Gil enrolled at the Painting Academy in

Santiago de Cuba Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana. The municipality extends over , and contains ...

, under the instruction of José Joaquín Tejada. Here, she participated in her first exhibition. From 1920 to 1922 she lived in

and continue her studies, enrolling at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stud ...

and the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

, during which she studied with Ashcan realist artist

George Luks George Benjamin Luks (August 13, 1867 – October 29, 1933) was an American artist, identified with the aggressively realistic Ashcan School of American painting. After travelling and studying in Europe, Luks worked as a newspaper illustrator a ...

and impressionist Frank DuMond.^Ibid. pg 59 Her work was first exhibited in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

in 1923 in an Art Students League exhibition.

Artistic Career

In 1924, Woss y Gil returned to

and opened a studio-school, teaching classes in the courtyard of her home.Danilo de los Santos. Memoria de la Pintura Dominicana. (Colección Centenario Grupo León Jimenes) 8v: vol 2. Grupo León Jimenes. Santo Domingo, 2003. pg 60 To inaugurate the school, she held a solo exhibition, being the first female artist in Dominican Republic to do so, which was well received by art critics throughout the country. Her school introduced the practice of drawing from live models in the country. Woss y Gill's post-impressionistic art style shows depictions of a wide range of subjects, most popularly female nudes, portraits, and scenes of Dominican pictorial life. Interested in human anatomy in art, Woss y Gil closed her home studio-school in 1928, leaving for New York to further her artistic training.^Ibid. pg 61 Upon her return to Santo Domingo in 1931, she establishes an Academy of Drawing and Painting, which would become the foremost art school in the country throughout the 1930s. Among the students she taught here were Gilberto Hernández Ortega, Delia Weber, Genoveva Báez, Xavier Amiama, and Purita Barón. Woss y Gil taught at her academy for the next 10 years until in 1942, when she joined the founding faculty of the newly formed National School of Fine Arts (“Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes”), eventually becoming director of the school.

Social Activism

Woss y Gil played an important role in the woman’s suffrage movement in the Dominican Republic that won the right to vote for women during the

Rafael Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( , ; 24 October 189130 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (, "The Chief" or "The Boss"), was a Dominican dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He ser ...

era. In 1927, she along with Abigaíl Mejía, Delia Weber, Trina de Moya, Ana Josefa Puello, and others, founded ''Nosotras Club'', the first feminist organization in the country, which advocated for woman's liberation and the betterment of children.Danilo de los Santos. Memoria de la Pintura Dominicana. (Colección Centenario Grupo León Jimenes) 8v: vol 2. Grupo León Jimenes. Santo Domingo, 2003. pg 24 Years later, in 1931, Acción Feminista Dominicana (AFD) was established, with the purpose of the “intellectual, social, moral, and juridical development of women”.Arregui, Marivi. "Trayectoria del Feminismo en la Republica Dominicana." ''Ciencia y Sociedad''. volumen XIII, numero 1; Enero - Marzo 1988. pg 11. The organization pursued Dominican Republic women's right to vote, and launched the first Dominican Republic feminist

manifesto A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...

in 1931, claiming the right to gender equality in the country's Constitution. The suffragettes included many artists and educators. Women were officially granted the right to vote in 1942.Arregui, Marivi. "Trayectoria del Feminismo en la Republica Dominicana." ''Ciencia y Sociedad''. volumen XIII, numero 1; Enero - Marzo 1988. pg 11.

Notable works

In 1939, Woss and Gil's painting 'El Vendedor de Andullos' was exhibited in the World Painting Exhibition at the New York World's Fair, obtaining a Medal of Honor for her painting; this painting depicts two men smoking andullo, a form of dried, compressed, fermented, and rolled

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ch ...

for pipe smoking and chewing widely used in Dominican Republic since

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

times. The background of the image displays working people going about their everyday lives, as well as children playing beneath a Arecaceae palm tree and a blue sky. The painting travelled around the United States well into the 1940s.

Gallery

File:Woss y Gil the marketplace.png, Woss y Gil "Mercado" Oil on canvas. 1944 File:Woss y Gil portrait of woman resting.png, Woss y Gil. Woman resting. 1941 File:Celeste Woss y Gil 01.jpg, ''Nude'', 1941 ( Museo de Arte Moderno,

) File:Woss y Gil male nude.png, Woss y Gil. Desnudo Masculino. 1941 File:Woss y Gil girl with fig tree.jpg, Woss y Gil. "Girl with fig tree" - Oil on canvas File:Celeste portrait of old woman.png, Portrait of old woman. Oil on canvas. Year unknown. File:Woss y Gil portrait of woman with pink dress.png, Portrait of lady in pink dress. Oil on canvas. Year unknown File:Celeste Woss y Gil self portrait.jpg, Woss y Gil. Autorretrato. Oil on canvas. Completed 1930. File:Woss y Gil Paisaje de Nueva York.jpg, Woss y Gil. Paisaje de Nueva York. 1940 File:Portrait of President Alejandro Woss y Gil.png, Woss y Gil. Portrait of President Alejandro Woss y Gil

References