Graciela Rodo (born 1935 in La Paz) is a Bolivian painter. She is noted for her artworks featuring stylized renderings of children.

Early life

Her love of art was influenced by her mother, a concert pianist, and her father, a businessman and art

connoisseur A connoisseur (French traditional, pre-1835, spelling of , from Middle-French , then meaning 'to be acquainted with' or 'to know somebody/something') is a person who has a great deal of knowledge about the fine arts; who is a keen appreciator o ...

. She studied music and art throughout childhood, giving her first

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

recital at age 15, and her first art exhibitions in

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and

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label= Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

at age 18.

Artistic career

Pursuing her dream to be both a great artist and musician, Rodo soon found that time would not permit the necessary devotion to both her passions. At 22, she turned all of her energy to painting. She studied etching and printmaking along with René Carcan under Johnny Friedlaender in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. She married a Frenchman, Boulanger, so that her public name became Graciela Rodo de Boulanger (Spanish) and Graciela Rodo Boulanger (French). In 1966, her artistic ambition began to be realized when she published her first editions of

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

s and first exhibited in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. In 1979,

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...

designated her official artist for the

International Year of the Child UNESCO proclaimed 1979 as the International Year of the Child.

poster, and two of her tapestries were presented in the hall of the

UN General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Cur ...

. The Museum of Modern Art of Latin America, in

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, gave a retrospective of her oeuvre in 1983. In 1986, the Metropolitan Opera of New York commissioned her poster for Mozart’s ''

The Magic Flute ''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a '' Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that in ...

'', and her paintings were shown by the Art Gallery of

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

. In 1993, the World Federation of the UN Associations chose one of her paintings to illustrate both a stamp and a limited-edition print on endangered species. A Fifty year retrospective entitled ''Five Decades'' took place at Gallery 444, San Francisco in 2006. More than 200 exhibitions of works by the artist Graciela Rodo Boulanger have been held on five continents of the globe."Graciela Rodo Boulanger Biography"

External links

''For the love of children: Bolivian artist Graciela Rodo Boulanger captures the joy of childhood on canvas''
Graciela Rodo Boulanger is in the Permanent Collection of the

Boca Raton Museum of Art Founded by artists, the Boca Raton Museum of Art was established in 1950 as the Art Guild of Boca Raton. The organization has grown to encompass an Art School, Guild, Store, and Museum with permanent collections of contemporary art, photography, ...

.
''Five Decades''
Graciela Rodo Boulanger retrospective, 2006

Notes

1935 births Living people 20th-century Bolivian women artists 21st-century Bolivian women artists Bolivian women painters Bolivian people of French descent People from La Paz Bolivian poster artists UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors Women printmakers Graphic designers Women graphic designers {{Bolivia-painter-stub