Mercedes Pardo

Mercedes Pardo
Mercedes Clementina Marta del Carmen Pardo Ponte, known as Mercedes Pardo (July 29, 1921 – March 24, 2005) was a Venezuelan abstract art painter.
Biography
Pardo was born July 29, 1921 (or July 20, 1921, according to her obituary in El Pais) in Caracas, Venezuela. By age 13 she began taking free classes at the Academia de Bellas Artes.
In 1941 she joined the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas in Caracas. She was active in painting, printmaking, and collage, and in 1991 the National Art Gallery in Caracas held an exhibition to review her work from 1941 to 1991.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://icaadocs.mfah.org/icaadocs/ELARCHIVO/RegistroCompleto/tabid/99/doc/1155959/language/es-MX/Default.aspx |title= Mercedes Pardo : 1 x 9 / Margarita DAmico |language=es |website=Documents of Latin American and Latino Art |publisher=Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190623222954/http://icaadocs.mfah.org/icaadocs/ELARCHIVO/RegistroCompleto/tabid/99/doc/1155959/language/es-MX/Default.aspx |archive-date=23 June 2019}}</ref>
In 1945 she married Marco Bonta, a professor of stained glass and mural painting. Their marriage was short.
In 1947 she attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Santiago in Chile where she had her first one-woman show. In 1949 she moved to Paris and attended the École du Louvre.
In 1951 she married the painter Alejandro Otero.
She died on March 24, 2005, in San Antonio de Los Altos, Venezuela.
Legacy
The Fundación Alejandro Otero-Mercedes Pardo was established in 2016. It is located at Alejandro Otero and Mercedes Pardo's house in San Antonio de Los Altos.
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.
Exhibitions
1947 Pacific Room, Santiago de Chile
1962 MBA
1964 "Signs", Sala Mendoza
1967 "Signs", Librería Cruz del Sur, Caracas
1969 "1 x 9 color of silkscreen", MBA
1970 "Recent works of Mercedes Pardo", Sala Mendoza
1971 Center of Fine Arts, Maracaibo
1974 Aele Gallery, Madrid
1977 Adler Gallery / Castillo, Caracas / El Parque Art Center, Valencia, Edo. Carabobo / Pecanins Gallery, Mexico City
1978 "From the workshop of Mercedes Pardo today, National Art Gallery", Caracas / Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City
1979 "Color, skin, meditated presence: anthological exhibition by Mercedes Pardo", GAN / Galería Adler / Castillo, Caracas
1980 "Mercedes Pardo in Margarita: paintings / serigraphs", Museo Francisco Narváez
1983 "Inesauribile Venezia", Sagitario Gallery, Caracas
1991 "Moradas del color", GAN
1993 "Graphic work of Mercedes Pardo", Consulate of Venezuela, New York
1994 "Graphic work of Mercedes Pardo", The Warm Spaces
1995 "Graphic work of Mercedes Pardo", MRE
1996 Sacred Museum, Caracas
2000 "Mercedes Pardo, 1951–2000", MAO / "Color and shape", GAN
2005 House of the Culture Village of the Sea, Porlamar, Edo. Nueva Esparta / Unimet
Awards
1942 Honorable mention in painting, III Official Salon
1944 José Loreto Arismendi Prize, V Official Show
1960 Puebla de Bolívar Prize, XXI Official Salon
1961 Prize of the Fina Gómez Foundation, XXII Official Show
1964 National Prize for Applied Arts (shared with Alejandro Otero), XXV Salón Oficial
1966 Enamel Prize, International Exhibition of Artistic Crafts, Stuttgart, Germany
1978 National Prize of Plastic Arts, Caracas
1980 Special Edition Purchase Award, World Print III, San Francisco, California, United States
1991 Armando Reverón Award, AVAP
References
Further reading
image of COMPOSICIÓN
1921 births
2005 deaths
Venezuelan women painters
20th-century Venezuelan painters
20th-century women artists
Venezuelan contemporary artists
Venezuelan expatriates in France