Ella Fontanals-Cisneros

A specialist in contemporary art and design, she is a renowned collector of Latin American art3​4​ and founder and president of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation.​

Ella Fontanals was born in Cuba in 1944. After the Cuban Revolution, in 1959, she emigrated to Venezuela with her family. A few months later, her father died and she began teaching English and swimming. Later, she met businessman Oswaldo Cisneros, president of companies such as Pepsi-Cola and Digitel in Venezuela, whom she married in 1968.​ From this marriage three daughters were born: Marisa, Mariela and Claudia.​

As a businesswoman, she managed bookstores and art galleries, exported raw materials and devoted herself to buying and selling real estate in Manhattan and New York.​

Trajectory
Ella Fontanals-Cisneros began her art collection in the 1970s, a collection that includes abstract works by creators from Latin America such as Gego, Jesús Rafael Soto, Alejandro Otero, Lygia Clark and Mira Schendel, among others. The collection is completed with photographic works by Barbara Kruger, Vik Muniz, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky; as well as installations by Julian Rosefeldt, Olafur Eliasson, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Ai Weiwei.

Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation
Ella Fontanals created in 2002 the Foundation that bears the family's name, a non-profit foundation. In addition to administering the collection, the foundation promotes contemporary art from Latin America through an annual grants program for Latin American artists. Furthermore, the foundation organizes an annual exhibition at the CIFO Art Space in Miami.​

In 2003, Fontanals-Cisneros founded the Miami Art Central (MAC) center, which for 3 years promoted contemporary art in the state of Florida. In December 2006, MAC merged with the Miami Art Museum (MAM) to join forces in the museum's contemporary art programming.

Fontanals-Cisneros serves on the boards of American Patrons of the Tate, the Cintas Foundation, United States Artist, and the International Women's Forum.

In February 2018, she signed an agreement with the Spanish State for the creation of the Center for Contemporary Art of the Americas, a new museum space located in the Tabacalera,​ a self-managed cultural center operating in a former factory in Madrid. The art center will have 5,000 square meters and will work in close collaboration with the Reina Sofía Museum.

Distinctions
In 2003, she was awarded the Spectrum Prize for Philanthropy from the American Red Cross. In 2007, she received the Visionary Prize from the Museum of Arts & Design. In 2008 she was awarded the Women Together prize from the United Nations.