Cecilia de Torres, Ltd.

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César Paternosto



b. 1931 La Plata, Argentina - lives in Segovia, Spain

After beginning his career working in an informalist mode followed by a brief period of lyrical figuration, Paternosto began creating his first artworks based on geometric abstraction in the early 1960s.  Before the end of this decade, Paternosto's formal and theoretical explorations led him to push beyond the very boundaries of the medium of painting.  Leaving the surface of the canvas blank, Paternosto moved the emphasis of his artworks to their outer edges, converting his paintings into objects and  destroying the inherited tradition of  only viewing paintings frontally.  Since this breakthrough, Paternosto has remained on the vanguard of abstraction in both Latin America and New York, where he lived for over four decades. 

In addition to his career as a painter, Paternosto has studied Pre-Columbian art with academic rigor.  This expertise has not only influenced his artistic practices, but has also led Paternosto to assume scholarly and curatorial roles, including his notable work producing the internationally exhibited show, Abstraction: The Ameridian Paradigm.   In 2005, Paternosto moved to Segovia, Spain, where a major retrospective of his works had been celebrated a year previously at the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art.  Paintings by Paternosto are included in such prestigious collections as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; and the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, German, among many others. 


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Painting as Object: the Lateral Expansion. New Works.

Painting as Object: the Lateral Expansion. New Works.

Gallery exhibition catalogue with essay by Edward J. Sullivan; extensive illustrated chronology, 90 pages fully illustrated.

$ 20.00 + postage

White/Red

White/Red

This beautifully designed and printed catalogue of essays, large color plates, and illustrated chronology explores Paternosto's artistic contributions, influences and achievements over the last 4 decades.

Essays by Lucy R. Lippard, Ricardo Martín-Crosa & Toshiaki Minemura; printed on Fabriano paper by Lucini officina d'arte graffica, Milano, Italy; Hardcover, 24 color, 56 b&w illustrations, 144 pages

$35.00 + postage

The Stone and the Thread: Andean Roots of Abstract Art

The Stone and the Thread: Andean Roots of Abstract Art

Challenging the notion that abstraction is a development of the modern West, Paternosto reveals its deep roots as an indigenous American tradition and shows how that tradition reverberates in the work of twentieth-century artists... In this major, paradigm-shifting book... César Paternosto offers the first comprehensive analysis of ancient Andean art - textiles, pottery, stone sculpture, and the famous lines in the Nazca desert - into one coherent whole...

César Paternosto; 272 pages; In English, University of Texas Press, hardcover, 172 photographs and illustrations

$ 50.00 + postage

North and South Connected: An Abstraction of the Americas

North and South Connected: An Abstraction of the Americas

Catalogue of the 1998-99 gallery exhibition with a major essay by the artist and historian César Paternosto and the essay: Three Andean Tunics – Color and Geometry as Metaphor by Vanessa Drake & Andres Moraga. As reviewed by Holland Cotter in the New York Times, "... the show traces a line, or rather several lines, between pre-Columbian art and 20th-century American modernism, with some eye-opening results."

Cecilia de Torres, Ltd. 52 pages, 16 color plates, 42 black and white illustrations

$ 20.00 + postage