Carmelo Arden Quin

Carmelo Arden Quin (né Carmelo Heriberto Alves; 16 March 1913 – 27 September 2010) was a Uruguayan artist. Arden Quin’s primary focuses were painting and poetry. From a young age, Arden Quin was an ambitious and idealistic artist. Today, Arden Quin is most recognized for his co-founding of the Madí movement, which began in Argentina but ultimately became an international movement.

In 1937, Arden Quin left his home country for Buenos Aires, Argentina.

On 3 August 1946, Arden Quin read his Madí manifesto to a group of critics, journalists, and others in his milieu at the French Institute for Higher Learning in Buenos Aires. As described in his manifesto, Madí is a wide, cross-medium movement encapsulating poetry, art, theater, dance, and visual arts. Arden Quin provided a guiding framework for every form of Madí art. For example, he dictated that Madi drawings should be characterized as "an arrangement of points and lines on a surface that creates form or a relationship of planes."

In Paris, Arden Quin continued Madí, producing many more works throughout lifetime. The movement continues today. In 1995, Arden Quin underscored that its lack of broad recognition has actually been the secret to its longevity and ideological consistency: "Having never been taken over by the media, MADI has been able to travel through time in total independence." Today, Madí is represented by artists from several countries, including France, Hungary, Uruguay, Spain, Japan, Brazil and Venezuela. Salvador Presta, Eduardo Sabelli, Nair Oliveira, Ana Maria Bay, Muñoz Cota, Jorge Rivera, Ricardo Humbert, Alberto Scopelliti, Lisl Steiner, Aldo Prior, Isa Muchnik, Ricardo Pereyra, Alberto Hidalgo, Grete Stern, Juan Carlos Paz, and Ramon Melgar. Arden Quin died in Paris in 2010.

In 1948, after his partner Sofía Kunst became pregnant, Arden Quin painted for her what his biographer and friend Shelley Goodman would claim is "arguably the most beautiful and certainly the most poignant work of his entire career." In his classic "forme galbée" style, Arden Quin painted nine "lunas" (moons) referring to the nine months of gestation, which would be collectively called "forme galbée bleue". The colors of the paintings depart significantly from his typical use of colors which were "dark and clouded in tone" in the style of "European values." In "forme galbée bleue," Arden Quin used vibrant blues, yellows, and whites.