Esteban Vicente

Early life Esteban Vicente was born in Turégano, Spain on January 20, 1903. His mother, Sofia Pérez y Álvarez came from an Asturian family and was born in Valladolid. His father, Toribio Vicente Ruiz, came from a military family near Salamanca and was an army officer. Esteban Vicente had two sisters and three brothers. He was the third child and second son. Vicente's father resigned his commission and moved his family to the capital, Madrid, where he worked as a buildings administrator for the Banco de España so that the children could be educated at good Jesuit schools. Vicente was taken to the Museo del Prado by his father, an art enthusiast, almost every Sunday from the time he was four years old and began to draw when he was sixteen. He was expected to follow family tradition and join the army. After three months in military school he decided to become an artist.

Training Vicente enrolled at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes in Madrid in 1921 intending to study sculpture. He completed his training in 1924. Commenting on his experience at the Academy he said "It doesn't give you any ideas about anything. It gives you tools, and teaches you about materials. Academic training is safe. It prepares you to be against."

Career He had his first one-man exhibition in Madrid in 1928, after which he left for Paris and did not return to Spain until 1930. In 1935 he married Estelle Charney, an American whom he had met in Paris. and Berry-Hill Galleries in New York City. He was a founding member of the New York Studio School, where he taught for 36 years. Although he never exhibited in Spain during the rule of Francisco Franco, in 1998 the Spanish government opened the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art in Segovia.

Vicente maintained a house and studio in Bridgehampton, New York from 1964. His marriage to Estelle Charney ended in divorce in 1943. From 23 February - 22 May 2004, the Museu Fundación Juan March Palma exhibited Esteban Vicente. Gesture and Colour. The exhibit presented a variety of works from his career from the 1950s to 1990s.

In March 2011 the Grey Art Gallery at New York University exhibited Concrete Improvisations: Collages and Sculpture by Esteban Vicente. In addition to 60 paper collages, the exhibit included 20 of Vicente's small-scale assemblages called divertimentos (toys), composed from pieces of found wood and covered with white plaster, with others composed of plastic and wood with architectonic elements.