Sarah Grilo (circa 1919 – 2007) was an Argentine painter who is best known for her abstract gestural paintings. Married to the artist José Antonio Fernández-Muro, she lived in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, New York and

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

. She is considered one of the most important Latin American artists of the 20th century.

Career

Sarah Grilo began her career as a self-taught artist. In 1944, she began studying at the studio of the Catalan artist Vicente Puig. There, she met her husband, the artist José Antonio Fernández-Muro. In 1949, she presented her first solo exhibition in Madrid, which was characterised by being a mixture of figuration and cubism. Around this period, her paintings became more abstract. In 1952, she joined the group Artistas Modernos de la Argentina, under the direction of Aldo Pellegrini. The group, made up of artists such as Enio Iommi, Alfredo Hlito, Tomàs Maldonado, Lidy Prati and José Antonio Fernández-Muro, among others, was presented in exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and at the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro until it was dissolved in 1954. Following the dissolution of the group, Sarah Grilo moved to

. During this period, between 1957 and 1961, her work became more lyrical. In 1962, she won the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

. The prize marked a turning point in her career and she moved to New York. From then on, she gradually freed herself from Geometric abstraction and developed a new plastic language. Her gestural works combined coloured surfaces, drips, digital and textual signs,

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

. In 1970, the artist left for the south of Spain, where she would stay until 1979 with her family. From 1980 she alternated her stay between Paris and

, where she definitely moved to live with her husband in 1985, until her death in 2007. Sarah Grilo has exhibited in numerous galleries and institutions in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. These include: the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires; The Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas; The Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo, Lima; The

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

, New York; The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami; The Art Museum of the Americas, Washington D.C.; The

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich "Rocky" Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was the 41st vice president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford. He was also the 49th governor of New York, serving from 1959 to 197 ...

Collection, New York; The Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; The Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid; and The

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. I ...

, Madrid, among others. In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition '' Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970'' at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

References

External links

Sarah Grilo at Galerie Lelong

Official website

Sarah Grilo.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grilo, Sarah 1910s births 2007 deaths 20th-century Argentine painters 20th-century Argentine artists Argentine painters Artists from Buenos Aires 20th-century Argentine women painters