Herrera, Carmen, 1915–, Cuban-American abstract painter, b. Havana. After studying architecture at the Univ. of Havana (1938–39), she trained at the Art Students League, New York (1942–43), then joined the abstract artists of the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles [salon of the new realities], Paris (1949–53). Moving permanently to New York (1954), she began a series of black-and-white paintings, and in the 1960s and 70s explored chromatic interlocking forms in such works as Green and White (1956), Green and Orange (1958), and Blue and Yellow (1965). In 1959 she began Blanco y Verde, a series of 15 paintings that took 12 years to complete. Characterized by precise geometric shapes and the use of two or three colors, Herrera works are represented in the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum, New York City; Hirshhorn Museum and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Tate Modern, London; and other collections.
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