Cruz Diez, Carlos (1923–)

Carlos Cruz Diez is a Venezuelan artist. Born on August 17, 1923, in Caracas, Cruz Diez studied at the Cristóbal Rojas School of Fine and Applied Arts. He began his career as a graphic designer, working as an art director at several advertising agencies. While his paintings display a taste for social realism with portrayals of daily life and common people, his graphic work reflects a fascination with color. During a visit to Barcelona and Paris in 1955, he began experimenting with the kinetic possibilities of color in his series Physichromies. He returned to Caracas in 1957 and opened a studio of art and industrial design. Later he designed publications for the Venezuelan Ministry of Education and taught art history and design at the School of Fine Arts and Central University in Caracas.

Shortly after his solo show at the Museum of Fine Art in Caracas, he moved to Paris with his family (1960). Three years later he joined the Nouvelle Tendence group in Paris and his work began to appear in international group exhibitions: The Responsive Eye (New York, 1965) and Soundings Two (London, 1966). He won the grand prize at the Córdoba Bienal (Argentina, 1966), and the international prize of painting at the São Paulo Bienal (1967). His large chromatic works are in the Caracas international airport and the Guri Dam powerhouse. From 1986 to 1993, he was a professor at the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Caracas. In 2005 his work was shown at the Sicardi Gallery in Houston and the Galerie Denise René in Paris. In 2006 he received an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Simón Bolívar. That same year Oscar Lucién directed and produced a biographical film exploring his career and influence, Carlos Cruz Diez, la vida en color.

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boulton, Alfredo. Cruz Diez (1975).

Rodríguez, Bélgica. "Carlos Cruz Diez and the Transformable Work of Art" (Master's thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1976), and La pintura abstracta en Venezuela, 1945–1965 (1980).

Rubiano Caballero, Germán. "Three Masters of Abstract Art and Their International Impact." Art Nexus 16 (May 1995): 80-82.

Schara, Julio César. Carlos Cruz Diez y el arte cinético. Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2001.

                                              BÉlgica RodrÍguez