Emilio Sanchez

Emilio Sanchez was an American artist known for his architectural paintings and graphic lithographs. His work is found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York NY), Museum of Modern Art (New York NY), National Gallery of Art (Washington DC), Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington DC), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana (Havana, Cuba), Bogotá Museum of Modern Art (Bogotá, Colombia), La Tertulia Museum (Cali, Colombia), and the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia).

A representational artist with a modernist and at times abstract approach, Sanchez emphasized "pattern, color and strong lighting contrasts". By 1970 architectural themes, from detailed stained glass windows to abstracted storefronts or city skylines, dominated his oeuvre. Carol Damian of the Frost Art Museum (Miami, FL) described his work as studies in "horizontals and verticals, bold stripes of color, and the ever-present shadows, especially diagonal shadows that he so favored, with darks and lights in repetition." For her, Sanchez's work was "not a picture of something, but the application of pigment onto a flat surface to become a singular object to its own definition."

In 1956, Sanchez's solo watercolor exhibition at Peridot Gallery (New York NY) of figurative New York or Caribbean street scenes was reviewed favorably by Stuart Preston of The New York Times. His 1956 solo show at El Lyceum (Havana, Cuba) led to his association with Galeria Cubana de Pintura y Escultura and group exhibitions in Venezuela and Columbia. In 1958, his solo show at Galerie Sudamerica (New York NY) was noted by Cuban critics. In 1959, he exhibited lithographs at the Havana Salón anual: Pintura, Escultura y Grabado and his first print solo exhibition Obras Gráficas, held at El Lyceum, was well received by the public and press. Although Sanchez did not return to Cuba after 1960, he continued to exhibit in biennials throughout Central and South America. At this time solo exhibitions of his work were held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Madrid, Spain, as well as in Houston, New Orleans, and New York. In 1968, Sanchez became an American citizen. He also signed with the renown Associated American Artists (New York NY) which held solo exhibitions of his work in 1968, in 1971 and 1981.

Although Sanchez continually explored a variety of subjects including fruit, flowers, clotheslines, sailboats, and sunsets, by 1971, architectural themes, such as the arched doorways of the Medio Punto oil paintings, emerged as his signature subject. At this time solo exhibitions of his work were held throughout Latin America at the Museo Bellas Artes (Caracas, Venezuela), La Tertulia Museum (Cali, Colombia), Museo Ponce (Ponce PR) as well as the Center for Inter-American Relations (New York NY). During the 1970s, frequent trips to the Mediterranean inspired Sanchez to adopt a more geometric and minimalist approach in his Moroccan paintings or Boston City Hall drawings. By the late 1980s, however, he turned his attention to New York scenes and depicted Bronx bodegas, storefronts, and garages as solid blocks of color. During this time he exhibited at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale and the Miami-Dade Public Library in Florida as well as at galleries in Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and Coral Gables, and in Miami, home to many exiled Cubans. Although Sanchez increasingly experienced vision problems, he continued to paint until his death in Warwick, New York, in 1999.

Since his death, solo exhibitions of Sanchez's work were noted at the Bronx Museum in 2001; at Boston City Hall in 2009; and at Syracuse University Art Galleries in 2011. Exhibitions of his work were held in 2012 at Saint Joseph College (Hartford CA), and the University of Virginia's Fralin Museum of Art, as well as in 2013 at the University of Oregon's Museum of Art, the University of Michigan, Indiana University, and the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023