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

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

, 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 ("James, son of Zebedee, 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 ...

in the

in 1945. He comes from a family of Dominican artists including

Yoryi Morel Jorge Octavio Morel Tavárez (known as Yoryi Morel) was a Dominican Republic, Dominican painter, musician, and teacher born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic; he is remembered as the leading Costumbrismo, costumbrista painter in t ...

. In 1963, Rodríguez immigrated to the United States for political reasons, during the period after the

Rafael Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( ; ; 24 October 1891 – 30 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (; "the boss"), was a Dominican military officer and dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from August 1930 until Rafael Trujillo#Assassination, ...

assassination in 1961. In New York, he often visited the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, where he was particularly inspired by the work of

El Greco Doménikos Theotokópoulos (, ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. ...

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 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, an ...

, and

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artwork ...

. At the Museum of Modern Art he preferred

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century a ...

and

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, , ), was a Dutch Painting, painter and Theory of art, art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He w ...

. He studied painting at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

under

Sidney Dickinson Sidney (sometimes Sydney) Edward Dickinson (November 28, 1890 – April, 1980) was an American painter. Dickinson was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, and was the son of a Congregationalist minister, Charles H. Dickinson. His parents moved frequ ...

; and at

The New School The New School is a Private university, 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 p ...

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 under the State University of New York, in New York City. It focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It was founded in ...

Career

In the 1980s, he joined several other visual artists including Bismark Victoria, Eligio Reynoso,

Magno Laracuente Magno may refer to: * Magno the Magnetic Man, a fictional superhero originally published by Quality Comics * Magno (character), a superhero in the post-Zero Hour future of the DC Comics universe * Rio Magno, a river in Jamaica People * Magno ( ...

and

Tito Canepa Tito Enrique Canepa Jiménez (21 September 1916 – 11 February 2014) was a leading Dominican painter of the generation that came of age in the 1930s and 1940s. Canepa's artistic identity was shaped in New York City, where he lived from the age of ...

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 El Museo del Barrio, often known simply as El Museo (the museum), is a museum at 1230 Fifth Avenue in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is located near the northern end of Fifth Avenue's Museum Mile, immediately north of the Museum of the City ...

. 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

and

. His style incorporates elements of Abstract Expressionism, Pop and Minimalism. In 2011 the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

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 a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

. 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 Cuenca, officially Santa Ana de los Ríos de Cuenca, is an Ecuadorian city, head of the Cuenca Canton, canton of the same name and capital of the Azuay Province, province of Azuay, as well as its largest and most populated city. It is crossed by t ...

. Other American artists exhibiting at this show were

Donald Locke Donald Cuthbert Locke (17 September 1930 – 6 December 2010) was a Guyana, Guyanese artist who created drawings, paintings and sculptures in a variety of media. He studied in the United Kingdom, and worked in Guyana and the United Kingdom befor ...

, 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