Loló Soldevilla

Dolores "Loló" Soldevilla Nieto (1901–1971) was a pioneering Cuban artist, a central figure in the development of Concrete Art (concretismo), and a formidable promoter of the Cuban avant-garde. The only woman in the influential group Los Diez Pintores Concretos, she was instrumental in translating European modernism into a unique Latin American visual language.

Born on June 24, 1901 in in the Pinar del Río, Cuba, Soldevilla was the third child of a piano teacher María Paula Bathilda Nieto Lannes and merchant Raoúl Soldevilla Seballos. Her early environment was deeply cultured, fostering her talents in music and theater. After moving to Havana in 1911, she pursued a formal education in music. She trained as a soprano and in piano and graduated from the Falcón Conservatory in violin. In 1934, she founded the “Loló Orchestra,” an all-female ensemble with a Latin American repertoire. She directed the group and played violin, and they performed regularly in the “Aires Libres” in the cafés of the Paseo del Prado in Havana.^[1]

Soldevilla’s commitment to social issues was a lifelong thread. During the 1930s, she was a vocal opponent of the Machado dictatorship, leading to multiple incarcerations in the Women’s Detention Center of Guanabacoa. Her political career was significant: She helped found the Partido Aprista of Cuba and served on its Executive National Committee.^[2] In 1946, she was elected to the House of Representatives for the Oriente Province, and then to the House of Representatives of Cuba in 1948. She used her platform to denounce the assassination of labor leaders, propose laws for minor courts, and advocate for sugar workers' rights. In 1947, she represented Cuban women at the International Women’s Federation in Prague.

Soldevilla’s legacy is defined by resilience. A true 'late bloomer,' she began painting in the late 1940s under the mentorship of Wifredo Lam, but her career found its true momentum in 1949. At age 48, her appointment as Cultural Attaché to the Cuban Embassy in France allowed her to engage deeply with the international avant-garde. This intense period of study and diplomacy enabled her to redefine the trajectory of Cuban art, bridging the gap between Caribbean tradition and global abstraction within a remarkably short decade.

In Paris, she immersed herself in the postwar intellectual milieu, studying sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Léopold Kretz and Ossip Zadkine. She joined the Atelier of Jean Dewasne and Jean Pillet and studied engraving with Stanley William Hayter and Gustavo Cochet.^{[3] [4]} Throughout the early 1950s, she traveled across Europe, visiting museums with Lam and engaging with masters of abstraction. Originally working in figuration, collaborations with masters such as Victor Vasarely, Jean Arp, and Jesús Rafael Soto steered her toward a visual language of "universality, purity, and formal simplicity."

In February 1951, Soldevilla organized and promoted the seminal exhibition Art Cubain Contemporain (Contemporary Cuban Art) at the recently inaugurated Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris. This ambitious project featured eighty-five works and served as a critical platform for introducing the French public to the evolution of Cuban modernism, from the figurative Vanguardia to burgeoning abstraction. The exhibition included a prestigious roster of artists, such as Wifredo Lam, Amelia Peláez, Mario Carreño, Cundo Bermúdez, and Carmen Herrera, alongside Soldevilla herself. By securing a venue at one of the world's premier institutions for modern art, Soldevilla effectively positioned Caribbean art as a sophisticated, universal movement. The success of this show established her as a formidable cultural bridge and set the stage for her return to Havana, where she would later catalyze the "geometric revolution" of the mid-1950s.^[5]

In 1955, Soldevilla reached a creative milestone by presenting her first "Luminous Reliefs" at the 10th Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. These innovative works incorporated electric light into abstract designs, a concept she codified in the "Light Manifesto," co-written with Eusebio Sempere in July 1955. These mark some of the earliest examples of kinetic experimentation in Cuban art. Her most radical contribution involved integrating light, shadow, and wooden tiers. These works weren't just objects to look at; they were environments that changed as the viewer moved, predating the immersive art trends of the 21st century.

Soldevilla's education in Paris and the bonds she formed between her teachers, students, and fellow contemporaries led to her producing her most important body of work in the years between 1950-1957. Her collage work from this period is a study of the geometries of circles, rectangles, lines and colors, creating a rhythm with their variation of size and shape. Diagonals, opposing elements, contrasting colors and organic geometric style set Loló apart from her fellow contemporaries, as did her asymmetric metal kinetic sculptures.^[6]

Returning to Havana in 1956, Soldevilla became the primary catalyst for a new artistic direction, serving as a cultural bridge between the School of Paris and the Caribbean. That same year, she organized the monumental exhibition Pintura de hoy (Painting of Today, Vanguard of the Paris School), the first international show of abstract art in Cuba, featuring 46 world-renowned artists like Jean Arp and Victor Vasarely. In working to connect Havana and Paris, she ensured that Cuban modernism became a vital branch of the international avant-garde.

In 1957, alongside her husband Pedro de Oraá, she founded Galería Color-Luz. The experimental gallery became the incubator for Los Diez Pintores Concretos (The 10 Concrete Painters; "Los Diez"), a group that established a unique language of abstraction in Cuba free from naturalism or symbolism. As the group's sole female member and its most public advocate, Soldevilla championed "Concrete Art"—a rigorous form of geometric abstraction that rejected narrative in favor of pure color, shape, and rhythm.^[7][8]

Soldevilla's own artistic signature was defined by a personal "hand-made" precision. Unlike the cold, industrial finish of some European Concrete artists, Soldevilla’s work retained a tactile, organic quality—a "warm abstraction" that balanced rigorous geometry with human intuition. The main philosophy of Concrete Art is that it is an extremely introverted art form; it has no narrative, no basis or reference in the natural world and has no defining qualities except the simple admiration of its colors and shapes. Soldevilla was a principal advocate of this movement. The closing of the Galeria Color-Luz in 1961 marked the official dissolution of the group after exhibiting together only three times.

Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the artistic climate shifted. While abstraction was not explicitly censored, it was often dismissed as "out of touch" with the new social order. Despite this, Soldevilla remained tireless. She served as a professor of visual arts at the University of Havana's School of Architecture (1960-61). In 1964, she founded Espacio, a multidisciplinary collective, echoing the collaborative spirit of her earlier gallery.^[9] The last decade of her life were primarily dedicated to journalistic and literary pursuits. She worked with several magazines and newspapers, including Granma newspaper, and even wrote a memoir about her life in Paris entitled, Ir, venir, volver a ir: crónicas (1952-1957) (“Going, Coming, Going Back: Chronicles, [1952-1957]”) and a novel, El farol (1964).^[10] An avid writer, she authored novels, plays, and even a ballet. Although she exhibited little in the 1960s, she remains a seminal, revolutionary figure in the history of Cuban art and the flowering of concrete art.

She also received two public commissions for murals, both in Havana: the Mural Colectivo en Homenaje a Camilo y Che, Plaza Cadena, Universidad de la Habana (1969) and the Mural Cuba Colectiva, Salon de Mai, Pabellon (1967).

Loló Soldevilla died on July 5, 1971 in Havana, just before a major retrospective of her work, leaving a legacy described by poet Nancy Morejón as a stone that "did not fall on a wasteland, but on water, which flows eternal."^[11]

In 1926, at the age of 25, Soldevilla married professional pianist Manuel de Jesús Nazario Barba Bonen. They had three children, Haydée, Magaly, and Pasto (who passed away at one year old).^[12] Her second marriage in 1940 was to the syndicalist Eusebio Mujal, but the couple divorced four years later due to sharp discrepancies in their political ideologies. During her transformative years in the 1950s, she found both a creative and romantic partner in fellow artist Pedro de Oraá, 30 years her junior; together, they founded the Galería Color-Luz in 1957 and became the central pillars of the Concrete Art movement in Cuba. Throughout her life, her daughter Magaly remained a close companion, accompanying her on her extensive travels across Europe as Loló established her international artistic reputation.

After decades of relative obscurity outside Cuba, Soldevilla’s work has undergone a major critical reassessment, sparked by landmark group shows, including Sotto Voce (2015) at Dominique Lévy in London and Diálogos constructivistas en la vanguardia cubana (2016) at Galerie Lelong in New York, and a major retrospective in 2019, Lolo Soldevilla: Constructing Her Universe at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York (with a companion publication).^[13] Today, she is recognized as a foundational pillar of Latin American geometric abstraction. Her work is increasingly featured in prominent collections across North America and Europe, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

2025

• Faktura / Tektonika, Sean Kelly, New York (group)

2022

• Loló Soldevilla: Parisian Collages from 1953-1970, Rui Freire – Fine Art, Lisbon, Portugal (solo)
• Ninth Street and Beyond: 70 Years of Women in Abstraction, Hunter Dunbar, New York (group)
• A La Vuelta de los 40, Galeria Acacia, La Habana, Cuba (group)

2021

• Dot Dot Dot… Pointalism and Beyond 1885 – 2018, Jill Newhouse Gallery, New York

2020

• Dimensions of Reality: Female Minimal, Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin, France Paris 1950 – 1960, Rui Freire Fine Art, Lisbon, Portugal (group)

2019

• Major retrospective Lolo Soldevilla: Constructing Her Universe at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. (solo)
• LINEUP, Curated by Alex Bacon, Almine Rech, New York Women Geometers, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami, Florida (group)

2018

• 3 Concrete, Kendall Art Center, Miami, FL (group) [4]^[14]
• Paris without Regret: Foreign Artists 1944-1968, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (group)^[15]
• Géométries Sud: du Mexique à la Terre de Feu, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, France (group).

2017

• Loló Soldevilla: De Part Concret à l’art cinétique, Cornette de Saint Cyr, Paris, France (solo)
• Triángulo – Loló Soldevilla, Sandu Darie and Carmen Herrera, organized by The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), CIFO Art Space Miami^[16]
• Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art since 1950, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. (group)
• Construcões Sensíveis: The Latin-American Geometric Experience in the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, Brazil Triángulo (group)
• Loló Soldevilla, Sandu Darie and Carmen Herrera, CIFO Art Space | The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, Florida (group)

2016

• Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s, David Zwirner's 20th Street Gallery, New York, NY (group)
• Constructivist Dialogues in the Cuban Vanguard: Amelia Peláez, Loló Soldevilla & Zilia Sánchez, Galerie Lelong, New York, Galerie Lelong, New York, NY (group)^[17]
• Beyond Borders, Museo Novecento, Florence, Italy (group)
• The Illusive Eye, El Museo del Barrio, New York (group)
• La Isla Concreta, Curated by Osbel Suárez, Dan Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil (group)
• Postwar: Art between the Pacific and the Atlantic, 1945-1965, Curated by Okwui Enwezor, Katy Siegel and Ulrich Wilmes, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (group)

2015

• Concrete Cuba, David Zwirner Gallery, London, UK (group)
• Soto Voce, Dominique Lévy, London, UK (group)
• Loló Soldevilla: Exposición Colección Claudio Marinelli, Museo de Arte de Pinar del Río, Cuba (solo)

2014

• Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict: Abstract Art from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, Florida (group)

2013

• Almacenes afuera, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)

2012

• Loló en Vigía, Galeria Pedro Esquerré, Matanzas, Cuba (solo)
• Constellations: Constructivism, Internationalism, and the Inter-American Avant-Garde, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington D.C.
• Cuban Abstraction Exhibition, Pan American Projects, Miami, Florida

2011

• Loló Soldevilla Masterworks, Tresart Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida (solo)
• América fría. La abstracción geométrica en Latinoamerica (1934-1973), Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain

2010

• Abstractions, Pan American Art Projects, Miami, Florida (group)
• La Otra Realidad. Una historia del Arte Abstracto Cubano, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)
• Vibración. Moderne Kunst aus Lateinamerika, The Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, Bundekunsthalle, Bonn, Germany (group)

2009

• Abstractomicina, Cremata Gallery, Miami, Florida (group)
• Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to today, Groninger Museum, Groningen, Holland (group)

2008

• "Cuba! Art and History from 1968 to Today," Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), Montreal, Canada
  • exhibited her panel (#65) of the collective mural El Mural del Che (or Mural a Eva Perón).

2006^[18]

• Loló, un mundo imaginario, MNBA Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Art of Cuba, Traveling Exhibition, Brazil (group)
• Cuba: Art and Art History, Traveling Exhibition (group)

2003

• Color y Luz en Playa, Museo de la Marcha del Pueblo Combatiente, Havana, Cuba (solo)

2002

• La razón de la poesía. Diez pintores concretos cubanos, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)

1991

• Maestros de la Pintura Cubana. Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño, Havana, Cuba (group)

1988

• Creadoras Cubanas: Pintura y Escultura, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)

1982

• De Nuevo Amelia en su Galería, Galería Amelia Peláez, Parque Lenin, Havana, Cuba (group)

1971

• Loló Soldevilla, Galería del Ministerio de Salud Pública, Havana, Cuba (solo)

1970

• Casa de la Cultura Czechoslovakia, Collages, Czech Republic
• Salón 70, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)
• Exposición de Pintura en Homenaje al 26 de Julio de Nueve Pintores Cubanos, Policlínico 15 y 18, Havana, Cuba (group)

1968

• Exposición permanente de Arte de Cuba, Galería de Arte Contemporáneo, Havana, Cuba
• Panorama del Arte en Cuba, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)
• Pittura Cubana Oggi, Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano, Piazza Marconi, Rome, Italy (group)

1967

• Salón Nacional de Dibujo, Galería La Habana, Havana, Cuba (group)

1966

• Op art, Galería de La Habana, Consejo Nacional de Cultura, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Pop art, Galería de La Habana, Consejo Nacional de Cultura, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Luna y Yo (Moon and me), Galería de La Habana, Consejo Nacional de Cultura, Havana, Cuba (solo)

1965

• Grupo Espacio Expone, Galería Retiro Médico, Havana, Cuba (group)

1964

• Loló: Luz y Construcción, Regional Habana del Ministerio de la Construcción (MICONS), Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Pintura Figurativa de Loló, Regional Habana del Ministerio de la Construcción (MICONS), Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Salón Nacional, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)

1962

• Libertad para Siqueiros, Galería de Arte, Galiano y Concordia, Havana, Cuba (group)
• Exposición de Pintura Cubana, Organized by Consejo Nacional de Cultura, Travels to Prague, Czech Republic; Budapest, Hungary; Sofia, Bulgaria; Bucharest, Romania; Warsaw, Poland and Moscow, Russia (group)
• Exposición Primer Aniversario, Galería INIT, Hotel Habana Libre, Havana, Cuba (group)

1961

• Exposición de Pintura, Grabado y Cerámica. Primer Congreso Nacional de Escritores y Artistas Cubanos, Havana, Cuba (group)

1960

• 10 Pintores Concretos, Biblioteca Pública Ramón Guiteras, Mantazas, Cuba
• Libertad para Siqueiros, Seguro Médico Building, Havana, Cuba

1959

• Loló. Pinturas recientes de Loló Soldevilla, Galería de La Habana, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Artes Plásticas al Pueblo de Cuba, Women’s Club de la Habana, Cuba (group)
• Salón Annual 1959. Pintura, Escultura y Grabado, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)
• 10 Pintores Concretos Exponen Pinturas y Dibujos, Galería de Arte Color Luz, Havana, Cuba (group)

1958

• Exposición de Pinturas Recientes de Loló Soldevilla, Galería de Arte Color Luz, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• 8 Pintores Cubanos. Oleos, Guache, Dibujos y Collages, Centro de Bellas Artes y Letras, Caracas, Venezuela (group)
• El Arte Abstracto en Europa, Galería de Arte Color Luz, Havana, Cuba
• Exposición Aniversario. Pintura y Escultura Cubana 1958, Galería de Arte Color Luz, Havana, Cuba (group)

1957–1961

• A, Feria del Arte Cubano, Cuba (group)

1957

• Loló, Galerie La Roue, Paris, France (solo)
• Loló 1953 –1957, Sala de Exposiciones del Centro Profesional del Este, Caracas, Venezuela (solo)
• Pintura y Escultura Cubana, Galería de Arte Color Luz, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Collage, Poemas-Collages, Galería Sardio, Caracas, Venezuela (group)
• Homenaje al pequeño cuadro, Galerie de Arte Color Luz, Havana, Cuba (group)
• Muestra de Pintura Abstracta Contemporánea, Caraqueña Galería Cruz del Sur, Caracas, Venezuela (group)
• Pintura y Escultura Cubana 1957, Exposición Inaugural, Galería de Arte Color Luz, Miramar, Havana, Cuba (group)
• Pintura Cubana. Dibujos, Oleos, Guache y Collages, Ateneo de Valencia, Venezuela (group)

1956

• Painting Today: The Vanguard of the School of Paris, Palace of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Loló. Óleos, collages, relieves, luminosos 1953-56, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Loló Soldevilla, Galería Cubana, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Pinturas, Galería Cubana, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• VIII Salón Nacional. Pintura y Escultura, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)
• El Tema Religioso en la Pintura Cubana, Galería Cubana, Havana, Cuba (group)
• Pintura de Hoy. Vanguardia de la Escuela de Paris, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (group)

1955

• Luminous Reliefs, Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France (solo)
• Loló Collages, Galerie La Roue, Paris, France (solo)
• Loló Soldevilla, Auvers-Sur-Oise, France (solo)
• 10ème Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (group)
• Artistes Étrangers en France, Sponsored by the Ville de Paris, Petit Palais, France (group)
• Loló Soldevilla/Eusebio Sempere, Circulo de la Univeridad de Valencia, Valenica, Spain (group)
• Salon L’Avant-Garde de L’École de Paris, Palais du Centre Des Asturies, Paris, France (group)

1954

• 9ème Salon des Réalitiés Nouvelles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (group)
• A collage group exhibition with Vasarely, Seuphor, Koeing et al., Galerie Arnaud, Paris, France (group)
• Pinturas, Esculturas, Collages, y Dibujos de Loló Soldevilla y Eusebio Sempere, Club Universitario, Valencia, Spain (group)

1953

• Loló, Galerie Allard, Maison des Intellectuels, Paris, France (solo)
• Loló, Galería Palacio de Santa Cruz, Valladolid, Spain (solo)
• Loló Soldevilla, Galerie Arnaud, Paris, France (solo)
• VI Salón Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, Salones del Capitolio Nacional, Havana, Cuba (group)
• 8ème Salon des Réalitiés Nouvelles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (group)
• Group exhibition, Galerie Allard, Maison des Intellectuels, Paris, France (group)
• Fer Mobiles. Moreno/Soldevilla/Rincón/Varela, Galerie Saint Jacques, Paris, France (group)
• Loló/Varela, Arnaud Gallery, Paris, France (group)
• Quelques Femmes Peintre (Some Women Painters), Galerie Olga Bogroff, Paris, France (group)

1952

• Sociedad Cultural Nuestro Tiempo, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Palacio de Sanata Cruz, Madrid, Spain (solo)
• Loló Soldevilla: Metal Sculptures and Collages, Galerie Olga Bogroff, Paris, France (solo)
• Loló, Pintura y Escultura 1951-1952, Palacio de los Trabajadores, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Loló Soldevilla, La Cabeza: A través de la Imaginación y la Realidad, Nuestro Tiempo, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• 7éme Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (group)

1951^[19]

• Art cubain contemporain, (organized by Loló Soldevilla) Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France (group)
• 20 óleos de Loló, Universidad de Havana, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Esculturas, Galería de Matanzas, Mantanzas, Cuba (group)

1950

• Loló. Sculptures, Lyceum of Havana, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Loló 20 oil paintings, School of Law at the University of Havana, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Dolores Soldevilla. Loló Esculturas. Lyceum and Lawn Tennis Club, Havana, Cuba (solo)
• Jubilée International, Cité Universitarie, Paris, France (group)
• Les Surindépendants, Paris, France (group)
• Salon d’Automne, de peintre Esculpteurs Entrangers, Académie des beaux-arts, Paris, France (group)

1949

• Salon d'art Monaco, France, (solo)
• Academy of Fine Arts, Paris, France (solo)

• Untitled, (1955). National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
• Día y noche (Day and Night), (1955). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
• Sin título [Untitled from the series Cartas celestiales (Celestial Letters)], 1957. Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, Florida^[20]
• Untitled (1955). Museo de arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA)
• Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA), Havana: The most significant repository of her work, containing her early sculptures, major "Concrete" paintings from the 1950s, and the Relieves Luminosos (Light Reliefs).
• National Library of Cuba (Biblioteca Nacional José Martí), Havana: Holds several of her published literary works and graphic designs.
• Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Orlando, Florida
• Museo Novecento, Florence, Italy

• The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, Florida
• Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection
• Jorge Pérez Collection, Miami, Florida

[[Category:Cuban abstract painters]] [[Category:20th-century Cuban sculptors]]