Emilio Rodriguez Larrain

Emilio Rodriguez Larrain (Peruvian, 1928–2015)

This work is offered framed.

Accompanied by a first-edition copy of Rodriguez-Larrain, the exhibition catalogue for the artist's 1963 exhibition at the Galleria Lorenzelli, Milan.

This painting is registered in the Archives of American Art as "Staempfli Gallery, inventory #775" and is the largest recorded work known to be created by the artist

A substantial mid-century abstract by this groundbreaking Peruvian Modernist whose works are held in numerous national museums, including in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. Emilio Rodriguez Larrain exhibited internationally with success, including at both the XXX and XXXII Venice Biennales, at the second of which this present work was exhibited.

Emilio Rodríguez Larrain first attended the Lima School of Engineers (1945–1949) and held his first solo exhibition in Lima (1950), after returning from his first study trip to Europe. In 1951, Larrain traveled again to Europe in the company of Alfredo Ruiz Rosas and Joaquín Roca Rey, and in 1956, he moved to Paris where he subsequently lived and painted for many years.

Rodriguez-Larrain exhibited internationally with success including in Lima, Madrid, Florence, Milan, Bergamo, Frankfurt, Berlin, Copenhagen, Mexico City, Paris and in Venice for both the 1960 and 1964 Biennales. In Paris, Larrain exhibited at the Salon des Realites Nouvelles (1957) as well as at the Salon de Mai (1969) and, in Rome, at the Italo-Latin American Institute (1970). The artist's work is held in the permanent collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Lima Museum of Art, among others. In 2016, the Lima Art Museum held a retrospective exhibit of his work and lauded him as "an important avant-garde sculptor, architect and painter who knew how to adapt to the artistic changes of the time and who played a very important role in the visual arts of Peru."

Emilio Rodriguez Larrain is listed in Benezit's Dictionary of Artists which notes that his "...paintings constitute a curious synthesis between a futuristic architectural construction that connects it to the tradition of geometric abstraction and a certain sharpness, happily colorful, that comes from Pop Art."

Signed E.R Larrain ( lower right) ; inscribed Roma, Nov 1963, Enero 1964'; titled L'Homme C'est Sujet à Errer (verso); bearing a self-portrait of the artist in india ink and wash.

Staempfli Galleries, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited: XXXII Venice Biennale (1964) and with original exhibition label verso.

E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Jacques Busse, 1999 Nouvelle Édition, Gründ 1911, Vol. 11, p. 817; et al.