I. Rice Pereira

Irene Rice Pereira (; August 5, 1902 – January 11, 1971), known professionally as I. Rice Pereira, was an American abstract artist, poet and philosopher who played a major role in the development of modernism in the United States.

Early life Irene M. Rice was born August 5, 1902 in Chelsea, Massachusetts to Emery Rice and Hilda Rice (née Vanderbiet). Pereira's father, a baker, was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States as a child. Pereira's maternal grandfather was born in Vienna, and her maternal grandmother was born to a Polish Jewish family in Poznań.

Pereira was the eldest of four siblings, and was the older sister of the painter Juanita Guccione (née Anita Rice). She spent her childhood in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where she spent time reading and writing poetry. She also spent time in Switzerland and Italy. she studied briefly with Hans Hofmann at the Art Students League. In 1946, Pereira was included in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition 1946:Fourteen Americans.

In a 1950 statement, she said "My philosophy is the reality of light and space; an ever flowing--never-ceasing--continuity, unfettered by man made machinery, weight and external likenesses. I use geometric symbols because they represent structural essences and contain infinite possibilities of change and dynamics." Brown and Pereira separated in the summer of 1949 and divorced the following year in Florida. On September 9, 1950 Perieira and Reavey married in London. Pereira left Reavey on December 13, 1955 and the couple divorced on July 19, 1959.

Writings Pereira worked prolifically as a writer, but she never received the same acclaim in this area as she did in painting. She published her first article in 1944, titled An Abstract Painter on Abstract Art. Her writings included topics such as structure, time, optics, and space. Her self-published book The Lapis discussed her dreams about the philosopher's stone. The Lapis was republished in 1957 for a limited 1000 book run. She also wrote poetry

Collections The Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), The Phillips Collection (Washington D.C.), the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the University of Iowa Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, Maryland), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), the Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Massachusetts), the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, Texas), the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute (Utica, New York), the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (Poughkeepsie, New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) are among the public collections holding work by I. Rice Pereira.

Art works Listed Chronologically: (1932) Boat Composite Whitney Museum of American Art (1932) Untitled (Boats at Cape Cod) Smithsonian American Art Museum (1936) Sketch for Machine Composition #2 Smithsonian American Art Museum (1937) Machine Composition #2 Smithsonian American Art Museum (c.1938) Abstract Composition Whitney Museum of American Art (c.1938) Abstract Composition(II) Whitney Museum of American Art (1939) White Rectangles, Number 3 Metropolitan Museum of Art (1939) Abstract, Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University (1939-1940) Red Form Baltimore Museum of Art (1940) Abstraction Honolulu Museum of Art (1940) Shadows with Painting Museum of Modern Art (1940) Three White Squares Private Collection (c. 1940) Untitled (Two Triangles) Philadelphia Museum of Art (c. 1940) Transparent Plants Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University (1941) White Lines Metropolitan Museum of Art (1942) Red, Yellow, and Blue Baltimore Museum of Art (1942) White Lines Museum of Modern Art (1944) Green Depth Metropolitan Museum of Art (1945) Rose Planes Walker Art Center (1945) Quadrangles in Two Planes Art Institute of Chicago (1946) Transfluent Lines National Gallery of Art (1946) Transversion The Phillips Collection (1948) Composition Walker Art Center (1948) Oblique Progression Whitney Museum of American Art (1949) Vacillating Progression Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute (1950) Bright Depths Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1950) Green Mass National Gallery of Art (1951) You Whitney Museum of American Art (1951) Evaporating Night Dallas Museum of Art (1951) Two Becomes One Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1952) Shooting Stars Metropolitan Museum of Art (1952) Daybreak Metropolitan Museum of Art (1952) Somewhere Today Brooklyn Museum (1953) Zenith National Gallery of Art (1953) Mecca Smithsonian American Art Museum (1953) Roselit Day Smithsonian American Art Museum (1954) Threshold of Eternity Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1954) Heart of Light Whitney Museum of American Art (1955) Landscape of the Absolute Whitney Museum of American Art (1959) Efflorescence Of Space Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1960) Omega Baltimore Museum of Art (1961) The Celestial Gate Sways on the Ringing Swells Smithsonian American Art Museum (1964) Light Extending Itself Brooklyn Museum (No Date) Heart of Flame Smithsonian American Art Museum Plates from The Lapis, 1954. This book is held in the collections of many museums and universities, including; the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Yale University Library, the Houghton Library of Harvard University, and others. (1954) Version No 2, 12/25/54, Image from Dream, 11/29/54 National Gallery of Art (1954) II. The Lapis in a Vertical Position, Man - God, Soul - Spirit National Gallery of Art (1954) III. Vertical View of the Lapis from Above, Mediaeval Image of the World-View National Gallery of Art (1954) IV. Renaissance Image of the World-View National Gallery of Art (1954) V. The Image in Perspective National Gallery of Art