Gina Pellón

Cuban artist, known for her paintings and graphic works of abstract women with strong colors. In 1960 she held her first solo exhibition at the Klute Gallery in Lucerna, Switzerland, and from that moment on she exhibited her works every year. Her works are represented in Florida by The Americas Collection.

She had a strong relationship with the artists of the CoBrA movement and the inspiration from it is evident in her portraits of women.

"Visiting Gina's home always brought the surprise and comfort of entering a fragment of the island of Cuba right in the middle of Paris. Not only as a painter of images that dazzled the eyelids and replaced the city's almost always gray sky, but also as a meticulous collector," recounts Cuban writer Armando Valdés Zamora in a text published in the magazine Conexos.

"Gina treasured sculptures, medals, maps, paintings, diaries, manuscripts, letters, first editions, encyclopedias, which for the most part had to do with Cuban history and culture. Around her desk and in her luminous studio, one could breathe, see and touch all of this patient collection that she, furthermore, offered to you the way she did with everything: generously because you too, for her, were part of that Cuba adrift that one day, in her yearnings, would return to a real island free of dictatorships," concludes Valdés Zamora.

Gina Pellón was born in Cumanayagua, Las Villas, graduated from the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro in 1954 and later studied in France.

In Europe she met Parisian surrealists and representatives of abstract expressionism. She held exhibitions in Paris, Lausana, Brussels, Amsterdam, Toulouse, Silkebour (Denmark), in Larvik (Norway), Miami, New York and Caracas, among other cities. She received numerous awards and her work is part of public and private collections around the world.

Pellón's style was marked by spontaneity and brilliant colors. With energetic brushstrokes, she created vibrant compositions in which women are the main subject. In addition to painting, Pellón's long career encompassed printmaking and poetry.

Gina died at age 87 on March 26, 2014 in Paris, where she had lived since 1959.