Fanny Sanín Biography  Maria Clara Martinez Rivera

1938

Born in Bogotá.

1960

Graduates from Fine Arts School, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá. 

John Stringer comments on her studies and teachers in Bogota:

|Sanín’s initial formative period was a time for experimentation that lasted eight years, marked by freedom and informality, in contrast to her mature work. However it was the ground for her later activity. This early Expressionist period had two phases. The first shows the style developed by the young artist in Colombia, the style she brought when she moved to the United Stales. What is really striking in the works from the early 60s is Sanin’s devotion to Abstractionism. It stands in contrast to the strong local “representational” trend, typified by the famous Colombian artist Botero. Figurative painting prevails in regional art. Sanin’s  teachers are also better known as representational artists. It is, however a significant coincidence that David Manzur, J.A. Roda and Armando Villegas, her teachers, were all going through an abstractionism period that reinforced the revolutionary tendencies in their gifted pupil. ^{| 1.}

1962

Participates for the first time in the XIV Salón de Artistas Nacionales, Bogotá, with a painting, |Óleo No. 1.

Begins studies in engraving and history of art at Illinois University, Urbana.

1963

Moves to Monterrey, Mexico. 

Her work undergoes a series of changes. According to John Stringer:

|Sanín paintings underwent an evident transformation in their atmosphere after she moved to Mexico in 1963. More specifically, a greater emphasis on drawing and structure results in a more deliberate, descriptive and particular form. Defined angles and firm borders announce polychromatic schemes, decidedly far from monochromes. Careful color mixtures animate the pigments and influence the tonal balance, benefiting both design and structure. Undoubtedly, the pieces are controlled by a more mature andsecure trace. ^{| 2.}  

Her work is awarded a prize at the VIII Salón de Noviembre, Monterrey, México.

Participates in the XV Salón de Artistas Nacionales, Bogotá.

1964

First individual exhibition, Galería de Arte Moderno, Monterrey.

Participates in the XVI Salon de Artistas Nacionales, Bogotá. Is invited to participate in the I Salon Intercol de Artistas Jóvenes, Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá.

1965

Individual exhibition at Galería Turok-Wasserman and al Casa del Lago, México. 

Margarita Nelken writes in the Excelsior:

|In her canvases, free from formal concretion. the artist exhibits not only remarkable force, but also primordial qualities such as a rigorous organization of chromatic spaces, and an accurate balance of value relationships. Each colored space finds here its | own life and, simultaneously, participate, reflectively, in the total vibration of the composition. Now, when so-called abstract painting is on | its way out, mainly due to having degenerated into careless and facile works, Fanny Sanín’s work, disciplined and structured, gives the impression of a real creation ^{| 3.}  

Jorge Crespo de la Serna comments:

|Convincing paintings that demand devote attention. Paintings that not only show a tremendous display of color a wise configuration of spots and an exquisite harmony of tonalities and nuances —that is, show of certain craft— but indicate great originality in their thematic expression. The palette vigour and the artist’s materials are really remarkable in each of the artist’s pieces. There is no uncertainty whatsoever, only spiritual and technical force. ^{| 4}

Marta Traba invites her to present her first personal exhibition in Colombia, at the recently created Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, located at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Participates in the XVII Salón de Artistas Nacionales, Museo Nacional, Bogotá.

Individual exhibition at the Architecture Department, Technological Institute of Monterrey.

1966

Individual exhibition at the Galería Colseguros, Bogotá. On this exhibition Marta Traba writes:

Fanny Sanín is one of the most important painters of the new generation. In my opinion, she sets completely different guideline to abstract painting from those usually displayed in this art school. |

|The artist creates paintings with such power and force, it may he said her work is imbued with organic life. She menages to leave this evanescent terrain, this easy terrain subject to improvisation such as the spot, the texture, pure quality and, evading these easy fields of expression, is creating forms. Certainly, forms that are not real; forms that do not have to show a parallel or establish comparisons with reality, but which attain, as I said, an organic character so powerful as if they were objects, things, or living beings. ^{| 5}

Fanny Sanín moves to London, where she continues with printmaking studies at the Chelsea School of Art and at the Central School of Art.

1967

Individual exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, directed at the time by Miguel Arroyo.

On this exhibition, Miyo Vestrini comments:

|Al the Museum, the work of Colombian artist Fanny Sanín has received favorable comments from the public. This young artist, who now lives in London. works abstract forms with a rare talent and purity. Particularly | those pieces where she uses very | pure blues and yellows are, undoubtedly transcendental works in current Latin—American painting ^{| 6}

Is selected among 1500 candidates living in Great Britain for the Edinburgh 100 exhibition taking place during the I Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Edward Cage writes a critical note where he highlights Fanny Sanin’s work:

   |The I Open Edinburgh 100 shows impressive pieces, such as the abstract, organic and powerful work by Fanny Sanín. Painting No.4, 1967. ^{| 7. |}

Participates in the XIX Salon de Artistas Nacionales, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango. Bogotá.

1968

Individual exhibition at the AIA Gallery, London. 

Cottie Burland writes on this exhibition in Arts Review:

|Four big abstract paintings. One may stop and freely observe the influence of today’s Latin-America in the selection of rich colors and low-key tonalities. The works belong to an international modern style. Each painting has its own construction and relationship between planes and forms. The basic unit is a slow moving whirl that attracts the elements to the center of the panting. There is a possible visual hint in the model, but unrelated to the essentially abstract character of the piece. A personal individuality is visible in the stylistic frame of reference. London’s influence may later alter the tones in her work, but a successful point has been already attained. ^{| 8}  

Eduardo de Benito comments during his radio show at the BBC in London:

|The exhibition has exactly four works, not one more or one less. Surprising as it may seem in the case of Fanny Sanín. These four works are enough to appreciate a shift in pictorial intention as important as the one that can be sometimes inferred from a retrospective. [...] In my opinion, however. the fundamental step in Fanny Sanín’s pictorial route is represented by the fourth canvas. Emotion has left the place to organization; forms formerly unconnected acquire in her last work a geometric coherence, within a “thought” rather than merely painted totality. ^{| 9}

Participates in the I Bienal lberoamericana de Arte de Coltejer, Medellín.

Moves back to Monterrey, Mexico. 

After her return to Mexico, important changes take place in her work:

|Sanín’s first “defined contour” canvases can be traced back to 1.969, the year she returned to Mexico. These pieces may be considered a sort of “reserve” in her career. They are the starting points of the rigid and accurate design elements that have remained in her work ever since. Eliminating all trace of modeling and modulation, they adopt radical simplifications and take basic geometry as the structural key to color assertions. ^|10

1969

Individual exhibition at the Pan-American Union (QAS) in Washington, D.C.

1970

Participates in the II Bienal de Arte de Coltejer. The jury integrated by Miguel Aguilera Cerni, Lawrence Alloway and Giulio Carlo Argan awards her the prize Ciudad de Medellín.

Participates in the XXI Salón de Artistas Nacionales, Museo Nacional, Bogotá.

Individual exhibition at the Casa de la Cultura, Monterrey, México.

On this occasion, the newspaper El Porvenir dedicates its supplement to Fanny Sanin’s work, including articles by Carlos Ortiz Gil, Ricardo Lozano Ramos, Gian Carlo von Nacher and Jean-Pierre Vielle.

In 1970, shortly before moving definitely to New York, Sanín began painting bands. As other color pioneers, she discovered how the incremented scale highlighted the power and impact of the canvas. With composition limited to a matter of interval, proportion, sequence and progression, color as subject is freed from the suggestive illusion ^{| 11.}

1971

Moves to New York, where she has lived ever since.

1972

Individual exhibition at the Instituto de Cultura y Bellas Artes (INCIBA), Caracas.

Participates in the III Bienal de Arte de Coltejer, Medellín. Participates with a painting in the XXIII Salón de Artistas Nacionales, Museo Nacional, Bogotá.

1974

Participates in the XXV Salón de Artistas Nacionales, Museo Nacional, Bogotá.

Her work is mentioned in the fourth volume of the book L’Art Abstrait, written by Michel Ragon and Michel Seuphor. They write about Sanín’s work:

“Sanín’s work shows above all finesse and controlled emotion”. |

In this book, an illustration of Sanin’s work (made in 1969) is reproduced.

1975

Participates in the collective exhibition Works on Paper­ Women Artists at the Brooklyn Museum, New York.

1977

Individual exhibition at the Phoenix Gallery, New York. Carla Gottlieb wrote an essay for the exhibition’s catalogue, where she says:

Fanny’s acrylics reveal an internal world inaccessible to the observer. Paradoxically, they imprison us and invite us to discover their secret. As with classical art, her works posses an inner life that flows from the artist’s will of restriction. This affinity is unexpected, because it appears to contradict the external evidence of her works. 

|Due to their size and their non-figurative subjects, Fanny’s paintings belong entirely to the XXth century. As many of her contemporaries, the artist expresses herself better in big canvases. This has been a constant all through her work: in her first abstract expressionist paintings of the 6O’s, in the chromatic fields of the early 70’s, and in her present paintings, where uniform zones of color stand in contrast to minor elements of different colors. [...]  The artist’s commitment to non-figurative subjects sheds some light on her personality. Developing within the same style is more difficult than doing it through a change of style, as is now in vogue. The public is always more eager for change than for quality. Fanny does not object to change. Neither does she condemn representational art or any other different art style. She knows, however, that abstract painting is the best —perhaps the only— means of expression for her. The artist has thus enough force of character to continue on the right path, even if it is unpopular, because she knows it is right for her ^|12.  

Madeleine Burnsides review in the East Side Express, says:

|Fanny Sanín’s rigorously organized canvases are made of crossing color bands. The designs are bilaterally symmetrical, and the center is the place where the bands meet the area most visually active. The areas apparently overlap. They are painted with selections of Fanny’s exquisite palette, characterized by the strong integration of tonal values, contrasted by small dark and light areas that attract attention to the more subtle pulsation of the tones without disturbing its constant rhythm. The excellence of these studies in color demands and holds the spectator’s attention. ^{| 13.}  

Edgar Buonagurio writes in Arts Magazine:

|Colombian artist Fanny Sanín’s recent paintings, of impeccable making, seem an attempt to reconcile the formal power of the “hardedge” Abstraction of the 70’s with the complexity of relations in Constructivisrn. Fanny Sanín assembles now a familiar vocabulary of rectangles, in different sizes and proportions —from the round to the elongated—, within patterns related to the configuration of nets or webs. Each rectangle is placed above another in order to create the illusion of a changing pictorial space —at times transparent, at times opaque— in which the form cannot be differentiated from the background. Here, in this particular combination of spatial ambiguities with the symmetry of the reflected images —with an intensely personal and reflexive palette— the artist begins to distance herself from her background and to explore less common territories ^{| 14.}

1978

Individual exhibition at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and at Long Island University, New York.

Her work is included in the inaugural exhibition of the Museo del Barrio, New York.

Notas/Notes