Freddy Rodríguez (1945 – October 10, 2022) was an American artist born in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

, who lived and worked in New York since 1963. Much of his work takes the form of large hard-edge geometric abstractions. His paintings have been widely exhibited and are held in several important collections.

Early life

Freddy Rodríguez was born in

Santiago de los Caballeros Santiago de los Caballeros (; '' en, Saint James of the Knights''), often shortened to Santiago, is the second-largest city in the Dominican Republic and the fourth-largest city in the Caribbean by population. It is the capital of Santiago Prov ...

in the

in 1945. He comes from a family of Dominican artists including Yoryi Morel. In 1963, Rodríguez immigrated to the United States for political reasons, during the period after the Rafael Trujillo assassination in 1961. In New York, he often visited the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, where he was particularly inspired by the work of El Greco, Rembrandt,

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

, and

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

. At the Museum of Modern Art he preferred

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

and Piet Mondrian. He studied painting at the Art Students League of New York under Sidney Dickinson; and at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

with John Dobbs and Carmen Cicero. He also studied textile design at the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. ...

Career

In the 1980s, he joined several other visual artists including Bismark Victoria, Eligio Reynoso, Magno Laracuente and Tito Canepa to form "Dominican Visual Artists of New York." This group was successful in obtaining sponsorship for exhibitions of Dominican Art in popular locations. In 1991, the

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

named him "Gregory Millard Fellow in Painting." In 1992, he was an NYSCA Artist in Residence at El Museo del Barrio. Rodríguez was a contributing artist to the Flight 587 Memorial located at Belle Harbor, Queens and dedicated in 2006. Rodríguez's artistic practice was influenced by Rembrandt,

and Piet Mondrian. His style incorporates elements of Abstract Expressionism, Pop and Minimalism. In 2011 the Smithsonian American Art Museum acquired three of his early works, painted in the early 1970s. Tall and narrow, the abstract paintings named ''Danza Africana'', ''Amor Africano,'' and ''Danza de Carnaval'' represent the energy of Dominican music through vibrant colors and zigzagging lines. A reviewer has discussed the political messages in his work, mourning the impact of colonialism and subsequent dictatorships on the original Caribbean paradise, saying, "The political messages are subsumed by the artist's desire to create beautiful paintings fusing Renaissance and modern traditions. Integrating illusionistic space with flattened surfaces, and contrasting loose and tight brushstrokes, the artist enters a dialogue with centuries of art concerned with these same pictorial issues." His 1974 painting ''Y me quedé sin nombre'' is the first work by a Dominican-born New York artist to be acquired by the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

. Rodríguez died on October 10, 2022 in Queens, New York

Exhibitions

Rodríguez has exhibited widely in museums, galleries, biennials, and art fairs. In 1994, Rodríguez's work was shown as part of the American contingent at the IV Bienal Internacional de Pintura en

Cuenca, Ecuador Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca, commonly referred to as Cuenca ( Kichwa: ''Tumipampa'') is the capital and largest city of the Azuay Province of Ecuador. Cuenca is located in the highlands of Ecuador at about above sea level, with an ur ...

. Other American artists exhibiting at this show were Donald Locke, Philemona Williamson,

Whitfield Lovell Whitfield Lovell (born October 2, 1959) is a contemporary African-American artist who is known primarily for his drawings of African-American individuals from the first half of the 20th century. Lovell creates these drawings in pencil, oil stick, ...

and Emilio Cruz.

Selected Permanent Collections

*Whitney Museum of American Art, New York *Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC *National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC *El Museo del Barrio, New York *National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

References

;Citations * * * * * * * * *

External links