Irene Rice Pereira (August 5, 1902 – January 11, 1971) was an American abstract artist, poet and philosopherGuide to the Irene Rice Pereira Papers
, 1928-1971, Archives and Special Collections, National Museum of Women in the Arts, accessed March 29, 2013 who played a major role in the development of

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

in the United States. She is known for her work in the genres of

geometric abstraction Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popu ...

, abstract expressionism and

lyrical abstraction Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting: ''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...

, as well as her use of the principles of the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...

school. Her paintings and writings were significantly influenced by the complex intellectual currents of the 20th century.

Early life

Pereira was born Irene Rice on August 5, 1902 in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, the eldest of three sisters and one brother. Her sister Juanita Rice Guccione was also a painter. During her career, she often gave her year of birth as 1907, which appears on some legal documents. She spent her childhood in

Great Barrington, Massachusetts Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,172 at the 2020 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, ...

, where she spent time reading and writing poetry. After her father died in 1918 she and her family moved to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York. In 1922 she began working as a stenographer in an accountant's office to help support her family in the wake of her father's death. She briefly attended courses in fashion design at the

Traphagen School of Fashion Traphagen School of Fashion was an art and design school in operation from 1923 to 1991, and was located at 1680 Broadway in New York City. The school was founded and directed by Ethel Traphagen Leigh (1883–1963) with a focus on the foundational ...

and night courses in literature at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

, and began taking evening art classes at Manhattan's Washington Irving High School. She immersed herself in the

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

world of

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

and had a brief affair with the poet and novelist

Maxwell Bodenheim Maxwell Bodenheim (May 26, 1892 – February 6, 1954) was an American poet and novelist. A literary figure in Chicago, he later went to New York where he became known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. His writing brought him intern ...

Beginnings as an artist

In 1927, she enrolled in night art classes at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

in New York City. Among her instructors at the Art Students League were

Jan Matulka Jan Matulka (7 November 1890 – 25 June 1972) was a Czech-American modern artist originally from Bohemia. Matulka's style ranged from Abstract expressionism to landscapes, sometimes in the same day. He has directly influenced artists like Doro ...

and Richard Lahey. In her 1929 class Matulka provided Pereira with her first exposure to the artistic principles of the European avant-garde that would shape her work; most notably those of the

, Cubism, and

Constructivism (art) Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected deco ...

. In 1931, she traveled to Europe and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

to further her painting studies, attending sessions at the Académie Moderne and studying with

Amédée Ozenfant Amédée Ozenfant (15 April 1886 – 4 May 1966) was a French cubist Painting, painter and writer. Together with Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (later known as Le Corbusier) he founded the Purism (arts), Purist movement. Education Ozenfant wa ...

in Paris.artist biography from Smithsonian American Art Museum
, accessed March 29, 2013 She also spent time in Switzerland and Italy. After returning to New York in 1933 she studied briefly with Hans Hofmann at the Art Students League. Her friends and colleagues were Burgoyne Diller,

Dorothy Dehner Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an American painter and sculptor. Early life Dorothy Dehner was born on December 23, 1901, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father was a pharmacist and her mother was a passionate suffragette. When Dehner was ten years o ...

, David Smith, Hilla Rebay,

Arshile Gorky Arshile Gorky (; born Vostanik Manoug Adoian, hy, Ոստանիկ Մանուկ Ատոյեան; April 15, 1904 – July 21, 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent the last years of hi ...

John D. Graham John D. Graham (December 27, 1886, Kyiv, Ukraine – June 27, 1961, London, England) was a Ukrainian–born American modernist and figurative painter, art collector, and a mentor of modernist artists in New York City. Born Ivan Gratianovitch ...

, and Frederick Kiesler.

The Design Laboratory

In 1935, Pereira helped found the Design Laboratory, a cooperative school of industrial design established under the auspices of the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

. The curriculum of the Design Laboratory was similar to that of the

. All students were required to take a basic course that included an introduction to chemistry, physics, and art materials. Students experimented with materials in laboratories in order to understand their physical properties. There was an emphasis on social considerations, and students were taught the social implications of technological developments alongside classes in art, music, and literature. Pereira taught classes in painting, composition, and design synthesis. She continued teaching at the Design Laboratory when it lost its financial support from the

on June 27 of 1937. On July 1, 1937 the Design Laboratory became part of the FAECT School, located at 114 E. 16th St. New York. When classes resumed on September 27 of 1937 the school was known as The Laboratory School of Industrial Design. She resigned her position in October 1939.

Mid and later years

Pereira painted throughout her life. Her paintings first gained recognition in the early 1930s, when she exhibited at the ACA Galleries and 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 ...

in New York. With the showcase at the Whitney, she became one of the first women (along with

Loren MacIver Loren is a given name, nickname and surname which may refer to: Given name Men * Loren Acton (born 1936), American physicist and astronaut * Loren C. Ball (born 1948), amateur astronomer who has discovered more than 100 asteroids * Loren M. Berry ...

and

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...

) to be given a retrospective at a major New York museum. In the late 1930s, she started to move away from realistic work toward abstraction and experimented with painting on layered glass. In 1943, Pereira was included in

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down wi ...

's show '' Exhibition by 31 Women'' at the Art of This Century gallery in New York. In 1946, Pereira was included in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

's exhibition '' 1946:Fourteen Americans''. During the latter part of her career, Pereira rejected abstract expressionism and experienced difficulties with gallery owners and museum directors. She believed that art and literature were being swallowed up in "a chaotic void of mindlessness." Eventually, she left New York permanently and moved to Spain. She died of emphysema on January 11, 1971, in

Marbella Marbella ( , , ) is a city and municipality in southern Spain, belonging to the province of Málaga in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is part of the Costa del Sol and is the headquarters of the Association of Municipalities of the reg ...

, Spain.

Style

Pereira was interested in exploring the role of the artist in society, believing artists to be on a par with industrialists. She created "machine paintings" that incorporated images of technological components, including ship's ventilators, generators, and funnels, as well as hinges, levers, and gears. ''Boat Composite'' from 1932, in the collection of the

is an example of her "machine paintings". Pereira began to explore abstraction in the late 1930s and her work included fewer references to machines. She became known for the geometric and rectilinear paintings created during this period. ''Abstraction'' from 1940, in the collection of the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...

, demonstrates her approach to

. She was interested in finding a way to bring light into her work, and began to incorporate materials such as glass, plastic, gold leaf, and other reflective materials into her paintings. She experimented with radium paint, layers of painted glass, and paint on parchment. In a 1950 statement, she said "My philosophy is the reality of light and space; an ever flowing--never-ceasing--continuity, unfettered by man made machinery, weight and external likenesses. I use geometric symbols because they represent structural essences and contain infinite possibilities of change and dynamics." Pereira signed her work as "I. Rice Pereira," which caused many people to assume that she was a man. Cataloging of her works can be problematic as she frequently left works untitled and reused titles.

Personal life

Irene Rice Pereira's first husband was the commercial artist Humberto Pereira,Biography at official site
, accessed December 2011 a painter, whom she married in 1929. They divorced in 1938 and in 1941, she married George Wellington Brown, a naval architect who shared her interest in applying new materials to art. When this marriage ended in divorce, she married the Irish poet

George Reavey George Reavey (1 May 1907 – 11 August 1976) was a Russian-born Irish surrealist poet, publisher, translator and art collector. He was also Samuel Beckett's first literary agent. In addition to his own poetry, Reavey's translations and critical ...

in 1950; that marriage, too, ended in divorce in 1959.

Writings

Pereira worked prolifically as a writer, but she never received the same acclaim in this area as she did in painting. She published her first article in 1944, titled ''An Abstract Painter on Abstract Art.'' Her writings included topics such as structure, time, optics, and space. Her self-published book ''The Lapis'' discussed her dreams about the

philosopher's stone The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", ...

. The original manuscript of ''The Lapis'', 1954-1955, is housed at Houghton Library, Harvard University, and was a gift of Mrs. Irene Rice Pereira in 1958. ''The Lapis'' was republished in 1957 for a limited 1000 book run. She also wrote poetry and in 1968 she became an Honorary Poet Laureate of the United Poets' Laureate International, which is headquartered in the Philippines. She published her last work, ''The Poetic of the Form on Space, Light and the Infinite'' in 1969. Published writings by Pereira include: ''Light and the New Reality'' (1951), ''The Transformation of Nothing'' (1952), ''The Paradox of Space'' (1952), ''The Nature of Space'' (1956), ''The Lapis'' (1957), ''Crystal of the Rose'' (1959), ''Space, Light and the Infinite'' (1961), ''The Simultaneous 'Ever-Coming To Be (1961), ''The Infinite Versus the Finite'' (1962), ''The Transcendental Formal Logic of the Infinite'' (1966), and ''The Poetics of the Form of Space, Light and the Infinite'' (1968).

Collections

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, ...

, the Brooklyn Museum, the

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...

, the

, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.),

The Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...

(Washington D.C.), the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the

University of Iowa Museum of Art The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art is a visual arts institution that is part of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Since its inception, the museum has partnere ...

, the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

(Baltimore, Maryland), 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 ...

(New York City), the

Addison Gallery of American Art The Addison Gallery of American Art is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art, organized as a department of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. History Directors of the gallery include Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr. (1940– ...

(Andover, Massachusetts), the

(New York City), the

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

(Dallas, Texas), the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute (Utica, New York), the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (Poughkeepsie, New York), the

(New York City), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) are among the public collections holding work by I. Rice Pereira.

Art Works

Listed Chronologically: * (1932) ''Boat Composite''

* (1932) ''Untitled (Boats at Cape Cod)'' Smithsonian American Art Museum * (1936) ''Sketch for Machine Composition #2'' Smithsonian American Art Museum * (1937) ''Machine Composition #2'' Smithsonian American Art Museum * (c.1938) ''Abstract Composition''

* (c.1938) ''Abstract Composition(II)''

* (1939) ''White Rectangles, Number 3''

*(1939) ''Abstract'', Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University * (1939-1940) ''Red Form''

* (1940) ''Abstraction''

* (1940) ''Shadows with Painting''

* (1940) ''Three White Squares'' Private Collection * (c. 1940) ''Untitled (Two Triangles)'' Philadelphia Museum of Art *(c. 1940) ''Transparent Plants'
Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University
* (1941) ''White Lines''

* (1942) ''Red, Yellow, and Blue''

* (1942) ''White Lines''

* (1944) ''Green Depth''

* (1945) ''Rose Planes''

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

* (1945) ''Quadrangles in Two Planes'' Art Institute of Chicago * (1946) ''Transfluent Lines'' National Gallery of ArtHitchcock, Henry-Russell. (1948). ''Painting toward architecture'' (book accompanying 25-venue exhibition organized by the

Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art The Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art (c. 1945-55) was formed in Meriden, Connecticut as part of the Miller Company. The collection was formed by then-CEO Burton Tremaine Sr. and his wife, Miller Co. art director Emily Hall Tremaine in c. ...

). (''Transfluent lines'' on pp. 100-01.) Miller Company: Meriden, CT. Retrieved January 22, 2017. * (1946) ''Transversion''

* (1948) ''Composition''

* (1948) ''Oblique Progression''

* (1949) ''Vacillating Progression''

Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute (MWPAI) is a regional fine arts center founded in 1919 and located in Utica, New York. The institute has three program divisions: *Museum of art *Performing arts *School of art Museum of art The museum o ...

* (1950) ''Bright Depths''

* (1950) ''Green Mass'' National Gallery of Art * (1951) ''You''

* (1951) ''Evaporating Night''

* (1951) ''Two Becomes One''

* (1952) ''Shooting Stars''

* (1952) ''Daybreak''

* (1952) ''Somewhere Today'' Brooklyn Museum * (1953) ''Zenith'' National Gallery of Art * (1953) ''Mecca'' Smithsonian American Art Museum * (1953) ''Roselit Day'' Smithsonian American Art Museum * (1954) ''Threshold of Eternity''

* (1954) ''Heart of Light''

* (1955) ''Landscape of the Absolute''

* (1959) ''Efflorescence Of Space''

* (1960) ''Omega''

* (1961) ''The Celestial Gate Sways on the Ringing Swells'' Smithsonian American Art Museum * (1964) ''Light Extending Itself'' Brooklyn Museum * (No Date) ''Heart of Flame'' Smithsonian American Art Museum * Plates from ''The Lapis'', 1954. This book is held in the collections of many museums and universities, including; the

, the

, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the

, the

Yale University Library The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new "Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 mill ...

, the

Houghton Library Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, and others. * (1954) ''Version No 2, 12/25/54, Image from Dream, 11/29/54'' National Gallery of Art * (1954) ''II. The Lapis in a Vertical Position, Man - God, Soul - Spirit'' National Gallery of Art * (1954) ''III. Vertical View of the Lapis from Above, Mediaeval Image of the World-View'' National Gallery of Art * (1954) ''IV. Renaissance Image of the World-View'' National Gallery of Art * (1954) ''V. The Image in Perspective'' National Gallery of Art

References

External links

Smithsonian American Art Museum biography

Works in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection

American Abstract Artists

I. Rice Pereira Papers.Schlesinger Library
, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Irene Rice Pereira Papers in the Archives of American Art
Smithsonian Institution
Irene Rice Pereira Papers in the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Baltimore Museum of Art Collection

Irene Rice Pereira Papers
at the

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pereira, I. Rice 1902 births 1971 deaths Abstract painters American women painters Art Students League of New York alumni Writers from Chelsea, Massachusetts Artists from Massachusetts Federal Art Project artists 20th-century American women artists Traphagen School of Fashion alumni