Irene Rice Pereira 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today resides in the Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Her papers and the manuscript for her still unpublished book, Eastward Journey, are available to scholars in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard.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
"Composition with Figure, " Irene Rice Pereira
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in New York, NY
Irene Rice Pereira
Composition with Figure, 1951
Inscribed, signed and dated Salford/Pereira 2/51 (lr); inscribed I Rice Pereira/2669 Great Clowes St/Sa...
Category
1950s Abstract Irene Rice Pereira Paintings
Materials
Paper, India Ink, Casein
Untitled
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in New York, NY
Chalk on black paper 1963. (Inscribed 1963) Signed and Dated.
I.Rice Pereira was an American abstract artist, poet, and philosopher who playe...
Category
1960s American Modern Irene Rice Pereira Paintings
Materials
Chalk
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 Paintings
Materials
Paper, Gouache
Radiant Reflections Abstract 1950s Oil Mid 20th Century American Woman Artist
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in New York, NY
Radiant Relections. Abstract Non-Objective 1950s Oil Mid 20th Century American Woman Female Artist. Signed lower right.
Provenance:
Estate of Foy C. Casper, Norfolk, Virginia (a close personal friend of the artist and a former director of the Irene Rice-Pereira Foundation).
Sothebys American art sale October 10, 2008.
The canvas measures 50 x 40. The work has been restored, relined and is housed in its original frame, made by the artist's second husband, George Wellington Brown, a marine engineer from Boston.
BIO
Periera was an American abstract artist, poet, and philosopher who played a significant role in the development of modernism in America. She is known for her work in the Geometric abstraction, Abstract expressionist, and lyrical abstraction genres and her use of the principles of the Bauhaus school. She helped found the Federal Art Project...
Category
1950s Abstract Irene Rice Pereira Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
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Early in the career painting of a red boat with swans by Irene Rice Pereira. Most likely done in Paris in 1931 or 1932. Signed lower right. Oil on canvas. The painting is housed in a new silver leaf gallery frame. Overall measurements are 23 by 27 inches. Provenance: A Pelham, New York collector.
Born in Boston in 1902, Irene Rice Pereira moved to Brooklyn, New York, with her family during her childhood. In 1926, Pereira enrolled in art classes at Manhattan’s Washington Irving High School. In 1927, at age twenty-five, she began taking night classes at the Art Students League. She studied with Jan Matulka, a formative teacher who introduced his students to the European avant-garde, particularly the Cubists and Constructivists. Here, Pereira was exposed to the work of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse and was encouraged to experiment with Cubist abstraction. In 1931, Pereira left New York for Paris and studied briefly at the Académie moderne before traveling throughout Europe and visiting several African countries.
After returning to New York in 1933, Pereira received her first solo exhibition at the American Contemporary Art Gallery (now ACA Gallery) and went on to become a member of the fine-arts faculty at the Works Progress Administration Design Laboratory. As a teacher, Pereira championed the interdisciplinary study of art and science, modeling her program after László Moholy-Nagy’s machine and technology-oriented curriculum at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. Pereira’s work from this period demonstrates her interest in a modern, clean-lined aesthetic and new, industrially produced materials, such as metal and glass. Philosophy, psychology, and theories of perception were equally influential, and works such as Black and White (1940) exemplify her investigations of light, reflection, and depth through geometric abstraction.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Pereira became a central figure among New York–based abstract artists. From 1940 to 1942, she worked at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (now Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum) as a museum assistant. In addition to continuing her prolific work as an educator and lecturing at numerous universities and art museums, Pereira was honored with many shows at major local museums, including the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. Pereira’s art was included in the groundbreaking Exhibition by 31 Women (1943) at Peggy Guggenheim’s museum-gallery, Art of This Century; in a major two-person retrospective with Loren MacIver...
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By Irene Rice Pereira
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White and Yellow gouache on black paper 1961. (Inscribed 1963) Signed and Dated.
Provenance: The Artist
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Irene Rice Pereira paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Irene Rice Pereira paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of 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 paint, canvas, casein paint 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 paintings, so small editions measuring 18 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Tarmo Pasto, Mervin Jules, and Paton Miller. Irene Rice Pereira paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $3,000 and tops out at $29,000, while the average work can sell for $3,000.