California Artist Luchita Hurtado, 99, Becomes Art World Mega Star
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99 Years Old Painter Luchita Hurtado Is finally getting long overdue recognition. Image by © LAURE JOLIET for Vogue UK.
W Magazine launches a series called ‘The Originals’, focused on talent leading the conversation in their chosen fields—whether it’s fashion, art, film, music, photography, or even skateboarding. The bottom line is that, regardless of their differences, they all share one very important trait: for them, standing out, rather than blending in, is not an option but a necessity.
W’s current focus is 99-year-old, Venezuela-born artist Luchita Hurtado, who has soared beyond her mother’s exasperated, life-sacrificing murmurs about her child: “My mother was very Catholic, and when I would say something crazy, she would cross herself and say, “What priest have I wounded to deserve this child?”
In the last few years, Hurtado has finally received public attention with a Hammer Museum biennial in LA, the Serpentine show in London — set to travel to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2020, and a retrospective at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, also in 2020.
Vogue UK profiled the Santa Monica-based Hurtado in advance of her summer 2019 London show, asking about her long wait for recognition. “I’m glad I’m sharing now,” she told British Vogue from her bright, plant-filled studio in Santa Monica, “because I never felt before that I needed to share. It was the other way around: I worked to please myself.”
Luchita Hurtado painting © Jeff McLane for Vogue UK.
In one of life’s many ironies, Hurtado was rediscovered when curators were clearing the studio of her third husband, painter Lee Mullican, and discovered unusual paintings signed LH. The creator of those paintings last showed solo in 1974.
Today, the October birthday girl, who is planning a major celebration for her 100th birthday, is excited by progressive politics in America and our great interest in the planet. She’s obsessed with imagining the essence of what humans need to live: air, water — the essentials. Asked by W’s Jori Finkel what the paintings look like, the response from Hurtado is precious: “I’ve painted a torso, headless, with arms and limbs, in black, white, red, and yellow, all done on a very special background of wood grain. It’s as if a person were a tree. I love trees.”
Hyperallergic profiled Hurtado in October 2019, with an in-depth overview and multiple images. And the New York Times made Hurtado a focus in January, 2019.
Luchita Hurtado: I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn, installation view, Serpentine Galleries (© 2019 Luchita Hurtado, photo by Hugo Glendinning)
