Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
American, 1902-1971
Born Irene Rice, she took the name of her first husband, the commercial artist Umberto Pereira. She adopted the name I. Rice Pereira because then as now discrimination beset women in the arts. By the time war broke out Irene had divorced Pereira and married George Wellington Brown, a marine engineer from a prominent Boston family. Brown was an ingenious experimenter with materials, and he encouraged his petite new wife in their mutual passion for experimentation. Pereira in the 1930s was drawn to ships, not only because of George Brown, but because of their intricate machinery, their functional beauty. The inside-out infrastructure of the Pompidou museum in Paris amused Pereira, although she thought it art-historically tardy.
Irene Rice Pereira was a lovely, fragile being. Her presence was hushed. She spoke almost in a whisper and listened far more than she spoke. She was a prodigious autodidact and a spellbinding lecturer. The main body of her metaphysical library today resides in the Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Her papers and the manuscript for her still unpublished book, Eastward Journey, are available to scholars in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard.
Pereira won recognition for her abstract geometric work, particularly her jewel-like works on fluted and coruscated layers of glass, throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. In 1953 the Whitney Museum, then in Greenwich Village, gave her a retrospective exhibition with Loren MacIver, and that same year Life magazine published a centerfold photo examination of her work.
By the late 1950s Abstract Expressionism had swept Manhattan, flattening such nascent movements as Geometric Abstraction. Such artists as Stuart Davis, Stanton MacDonald Wright, George L.K. Morris, George Ault, Jan Matulka, Richard Leahy, Philip Guston and many others were eclipsed. Pereira believed that a European angst, brought to our shores in the wake of the Holocaust, had introduced a cynicism and a profoundly anti-female sensibility that boded ill for art in America. Rightly she pointed out that even when the works of women were acquired by museums they were rarely shown, a disgrace that persists to this day. The women who did achieve success, she said, were often collaborators with more famous male artists and tastemakers.
Pereira died in 1971 in Marbella, Spain, ill and broken-hearted. She had been evicted from the Fifteenth Street studio in Chelsea where she had painted for more than thirty years. Suffering from severe emphysema, she could barely negotiate a few stairs.
But by the 1980s a new generation of women scholars and curators had begun to resurrect her stature. A considerable following has formed to honor a pioneer artist who cared about other artists and willingly paid the price to denounce what others feared in silence. Indeed when Pereira sold a painting she had two immediate impulses: buy a new hat, and give the money to an artist friend in trouble. She loved hats but loved to help fellow artists even more.to
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Artist: Irene Rice Pereira
Mercurius Bringing Day, 1940 Pastel by Irene Rice Pereira
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in Long Island City, NY
Mercurius Bringing Day
Irene Rice Pereira, American (1902-1971)
1940
Pastel on rice paper, signed, titled and dated in pastel
38.5 x 24.5 in. (97.79 x 62.23 cm)
Category
1940s Modern Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Pastel
Blue Woman, 1958 Pastel by Irene Rice Pereira
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in Long Island City, NY
Blue Woman
Irene Rice Pereira, American (1902-1971)
1958
Pastel on rice paper, signed and dated in pastel
Size: 36.5 x 25 in. (92.71 x 63.5 cm)
Category
1950s Modern Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Pastel
The Descent of the Dove, 1967 Pastel by Irene Rice Pereira
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in Long Island City, NY
The Descent of the Dove
Irene Rice Pereira, American (1902-1971)
1967
Pastel on rice paper, signed and titled in marker, dated in pastel
39 x 24.75 in. (99.06 x 62.87 cm)
Category
1960s Modern Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Pastel
Mars, 1966 Mixed Media by Irene Rice Pereira
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in Long Island City, NY
Mars
Irene Rice Pereira, American (1902-1971)
Creation Date: 1966
Acrylic and pastel on rice paper, signed, dated, and titled in pastel
Size: 39 x 24.75 in. (99.06 x 62.87 cm)
Category
1960s Modern Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Pastel, Acrylic
Irene Rice Pereira Modernist Gouache Drawing Painting Abstract Expressionist Art
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in Surfside, FL
Irene Rice Pereira,
Mixed Media on Paper (American, 1902-1971)
Titled "The East Wind Carries the Seed"
Hand signed l.r. "I. Rice Pereira".
Paper: 14.1/8"h x 18.25"w
Irene Rice Pe...
Category
Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Gouache
ABSTRACT American Woman Abstract Non-objective Mid 20th Century Modern Drawing
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in New York, NY
ABSTRACT American Woman Abstract Non-objective Mid 20th Century Modern Drawing
Irene Rice Pereira (1902-1971)
Abstract
8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
Watercolor, gouache, and ink on black paper
Signed lower right
Framed by Bark
BIO
rene Pereira was born in 1902 in Chelsea, Massachusetts and grew up in Great Barrington. She was strongly influenced by her mother who was an amateur artist. Irene began art lessons at the age of fifteen; she took a secretarial job because her father had died. She took art classes at the Art Students League in New York City. At the age of twenty-one she married the first of three husbands, Humberto Pereira, whose name she kept.
She traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa and was much inspired by the expansive vistas of the Sahara Desert. Returning to New York, she began incorporating these visions into her work, increasingly experimental in her styles and methods. At first she painted on canvas, then she devised a means of actually incorporating light into her works by painting on layers of glass and mounting the layers together.
In 1942 she married George Brown, an engineer, who helped her experiment with a variety of materials. By the 1950s she became more interested in writing poetry and, divorced from Brown in 1952, she married George Reavey, an Irish Poet...
Category
1950s Abstract Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor, Gouache
Descent of Mercurius, 1962 Mixed Media by Irene Rice Pereira
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in Long Island City, NY
Descent of Mercurius
Irene Rice Pereira, American (1902-1971)
1962
Pastel and Acrylic on rice paper, signed, titled and dated in pastel
Size: 35 x 23.75 in. (88.9 x 60.33 cm)
Category
1960s Modern Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Pastel, Acrylic
Abstraction
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in New York, NY
I . Rice Pereira
Abstraction
Pastel. Signed. 9 1/8 x 5 7/8"
I.Rice Pereira was an American abstract artist, poet, and philosopher who played a significant rol...
Category
1960s Abstract Geometric Irene Rice Pereira Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Oil Pastel
Price Upon Request
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Irene Rice Pereira drawings and watercolor paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Irene Rice Pereira drawings and watercolor paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of drawings and watercolor paintings to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Irene Rice Pereira in crayon, gouache, oil pastel and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Irene Rice Pereira drawings and watercolor paintings, so small editions measuring 6 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Larry Zox, James Minden, and Seymour Lipton. Irene Rice Pereira drawings and watercolor paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $5,500 and tops out at $6,000, while the average work can sell for $5,750.