Biography (1923)

Born in Caracas in 1923, he studied at the School of Fine Arts in Caracas and obtained the diploma of professor in Applied Arts. In 1944 he worked as illustrator for the publication of the Creole Petroleum Corporation El Farol, as well as for other magazines such as La Esfera and Élite. In 1947 he held his first personal exhibition at the Instituto Venezolano-Americano in Caracas. He has lived and worked in Paris since 1960 and is a major protagonist in the field of Kinetic and Optical art, a movement that encourages “an awareness of the instability of reality.” His body of work has established him as one of the key twentieth-century thinkers in the realm of color. Carlos Cruz-Diez’s visual art explores the perception of color as an autonomous reality evolving in space and time, unaided by form or support, in a perpetual present.

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

2015. Carlos Cruz-Diez: Didaktik und Dialektik der Farbe, Das Kleine Museum, Weissenstadt, Germany.
2014. Carlos Cruz-Diez: Circonstance et ambiguïté de la couleur, Fondation Vasarely, Aix-en Provence, France.
2013. Carlos Cruz-Diez: Circumstance and Ambiguity of Color, Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Beijing, China.
2012. Carlos Cruz-Diez: El color en el espacio y en el tiempo, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico DF., Mexico.
2012. Cruz-Diez: Color in Space, Jeonbuk Province Art Museum, Jeonbuk, South Korea.
2011. Carlos Cruz-Diez: El color en el espacio y en el tiempo, Latin American Museum of Art (MALBA) – Constantini Collection, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2011. Carlos Cruz-Diez: Color in Space and Time, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, United States.
2010. Carlos Cruz Diez: The Embodied Experience of Color, Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL, United States.
2008. Carlos Cruz-Diez: (In) Formed by Color, Americas Society, New York, NY, United States.
2005. Cruz-Diez: La couleur dans l’espace, Denise René Gallery, Espace Marais, Paris, France.
1999. Retrospectiva 1954-1998, Modern ART Museum of Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela.
1990. Cruz-Diez, Couvent des Cordeliers, Chateauroux, France.
1980. Cruz-Diez: Didáctica y dialéctica del color, Simón Bolívar University Museum of Art, Caracas, Venezuela.
1976. Fisicromías. Cromocinetismo, Museum of Modern Art., Mexico DF, Mexico.
1973. Cruz-Diez: Color Evolution, Denise René Gallery, New York, NY, United States.
1970. XXXV Venice Biennial, Venezuelan Pavilion, Venice, Italy.
1969. Cruz-Diez: Multiples,Denise René Gallery, Rive Gauche, Paris, France.
1965. A Decade of Physichromies by Carlos Cruz-Diez, Signals London, London, United Kindom.
1960. Cruz-Diez: Fisicromías, Central University of Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela.
1956. Carlos Cruz-Diez, Buchholz Gallery, Madrid, Spain.
1947. 12 gouaches de Carlos Cruz Diez, Centro Venezolano-Americano, Caracas, Venezuela.

Selection Awards and Prizes:

2015.Turner Medal, City University, London, United Kingdom.
2012. Páez Medal of Art, Venezuelan American Endowment for the Arts (VAEA), New York, United States.
2012. Premio Penagos de Dibujo, Fundación Mapfre, Madrid, Spain.
2011. Golden Medal, Americas Society, New York, United States.
2010. AICA Award 2009, Asociación Internacional de Críticos de Arte, Caracas, Venezuela.
1992. Gold Medal, Norwegian International Print Triennale, Oslo, Norway.
1971. National Art Award, Instituto Nacional de Cultura y Bellas Artes (INCIBA), Caracas, Venezuela.
1967. International Painting Prize, IX Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
1966. Grand Prize, III Bienal Americana de Arte, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina.