Magdalena Suarez Frimkess

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess (born 1929, Caracas, Venezuela) is a Venezuelan artist who works in ceramics. She is best known for her sculptures of cartoon characters and advertisement artworks. When she was eighteen years old, she met her first partner, a married man who was separated from his wife. They moved to Chile, where they had two children. The couple moved to Venice, California to collaborate and work together in their studio.

Art Suarez creates sculpture-like cartoon characters, vases, and mugs that often involve slogans and advertisements. One of her most famous works is of Popeye, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and other Disney characters. Most of Suarez's work is small-scale. Suarez's works were often viewed as unconventional during her time in ceramic school, as they were decorative rather than functional.

Suarez and Frimkess occasionally worked together in the 1960s. After Frimkess was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1971, they began working together more closely. Frimkess throws the pottery and Suarez paints it. They have had exhibitions together, including at the Hammer Museum.

In August of 2024, LACMA held its first exhibition featuring Magdalena entitled “Magdalena Suárez Frimkess, The Finest Disregard” at the Resnikoff Pavilion. Billed as a career retrospective, the exhibition featured Magdalena’s lifetime of artistic expression, including sketches, drawings, hand-painted sculptures, tiles and vessels, as well as some of her collaborative work with her husband Michael, who subsequently passed away in February 2025.

As of January 2026, at the age of 97, Magdalena Suárez Frimkess moved out of her home studio in Venice, CA, but she continues to create and produce celebrated works of art.

Exhibitions

Louis Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood: Vessels of Satire: The Art of Magdalena and Michael Frimkess, 2000–2001 South Willard gallery, Los Angeles: Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, 2013 Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: New York, 2018 Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: Stoneware and Drawings, 2020 Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: 90, 2021 David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles: Grapevine ~, 2013 White Columns gallery, New York City: The Cat Show, 2013 Project Room: Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, 2014 Looking Back, 2015 The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles: Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Michael Frimkess: Made In L.A., 2014 The Nevica Project gallery, Chicago and Kansas City: The Frimkess Collection, 2016-2017 kaufmann repetto gallery, Milan / New York: Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Milan, 2016 Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, New York, 2017 The world is my menu, New York, 2022 NoW girls allowed, New York, 2024 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Resnikoff Pavilion: Magdalena Frimkess, The Finest Disregard, August 2024- January 2025