Estate of Mercedes Pardo

Mercedes (Clementina Marta Del Carmen) Pardo
[1921-2005, Venezuela]

Mercedes Pardo was one of the most important representatives of abstract art in Venezuela. Her work revolved mainly around painting but also extended to stained glass, enamel on metal, and graphics. Likewise, she created pieces involving architectural integration as well as theatrical sets and wardrobe. She taught and founded several creativity workshops. During her childhood, she studied painting with Danish professor Ingeborg Fostberg and, at age thirteen, she began taking courses at the Academy of Fine Arts, which she continued in 1941 and completed in 1944. In 1945, she married Marco Bontá, a stained glass and mural painting professor from Chile, divorcing him shortly thereafter. She traveled to Chile to attend the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Santiago in 1947, where she had her first solo show.

In 1949, she was awarded a fellowship by the Chilean Government (Ministry of Education) and then moved to Paris to enroll at theÉcole du Louvre, where she studied art history under Cohe de la Ferti and Jean Cassou. During this period, she began producing collages and her first abstract works. In 1951, she married Alejandro Otero in London.

In 1952, she returned to Venezuela and participated in the International Exhibition of Abstract Art (Galeria Cuatro Muros, Caracas). Abstractionism began to be recognized in Venezuela during the 1950s, and a climate of renewal for both artistic production and education was supported by the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV)’s implementation of an artistic integration project and by the return of a generation of artists educated in France. Around 1956, Pardo began producing pieces that could be categorized as pre-informalist given their use of a rich pictorial layer, though her work tended toward a formal exploration of color effects. In 1956, she began doing stage sets with Elizabeth Schön’s Interval at the Teatro Nacional in Caracas. In 1960, she moved to Paris, where she painted abstract watercolors characterized by their lyrical brushstrokes, drips, and blotches that created a highly dynamic artistic space.

2023
Mercedes Pardo: Color y Magia, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France; Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany

2022
Ellas en lo Abstracto, Galería de Arte Nacional (GAN), Caracas, Venezuela
Iluminaciones. La lógica sensible de Mercedes Pardo y Alejandro Otero (julio). Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas

2021
Unframed, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA

2020
The Grid in Modern Latin American Art, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, Texas, USA
Dialogues, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, Texas, USA

2019
Women Geometers, Atchugarry Art Center/Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami, FL, USA
Women Artists from Latin America, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela

2018
Contesting Modernity: Informalism in Venezuela, 1955-1957, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
Mercedes Pardo: Beyond Color, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA

2005
Pueblo de la Mar Cultural Center, Porlamar, State of Nueva Esparta / Unimet, Venezuela

2000
Mercedes Pardo: 1951–2000, MAO / Color and Form, Galería de Arte Nacional (GAN), Caracas, Venezuela

1996
Sacred Museum, Caracas, Venezuela

1995
Graphic work by Mercedes Pardo, Ministry of Exterior Relationships, Caracas, Venezuela

1994
Graphic work by Mercedes Pardo, Los Espacios Cálidos, Caracas, Venezuela

1993
Graphic work by Mercedes Pardo, Venezuelan Consulate, New York, NY, USA

Museo de Arte del Banco de la República, Bogota, Colombia

Museum of Fine Arts, Caracas, Venezuela

Banco Mercantil Foundation, Caracas, Venezuela

National Art Gallery, Caracas, Venezuela

Central Bank of Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela