Myrna Báez

Myrna Báez (born August 18, 1931 – September 24, 2018) was a Puerto Rican painter and printmaker, considered one of the most important visual artists in Puerto Rico. She has been instrumental in promoting art and art education in her country. Her work has been shown and collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work has been characterized as confident and complex. She lived and worked in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Life and education Báez was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, to an upper-middle-class family and was one of five children. Her father, Enrique Báez was a civil engineer and her mother, America Gonzalez was a teacher and an independent and confident woman. Before she arrived in Spain, she spent time in New York and Paris, immersing herself in the culture of both cities. In 1952, her passion for the arts led her to leave medical studies and pursue painting. She applied at the San Fernando Art Academy and was rejected, but she worked hard to build up her portfolio and was accepted in 1953. Later, she studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1969 to 1970. Her family had her remains cremated.

Career and art Báez's career started in 1957. She was a teacher of painting and drawing at schools in Puerto Rico between 1962 and 1987. From 1981 to 1987 she taught at the Art Students League in San Juan.

Much of Báez's early art works, created during the 1960s, are described as "traditional images of Puerto Rico." During her earlier period of work, she often portrayed images of "everyday life" for "Puerto Rico's working-class people." She became influenced by impressionism, surrealism and abstract art, incorporating many of these aspects into her work. She references great masters and re-imagines famous female nudes with intent to both disguise the figures and reveal them. Báez's portraits continue to question the idea of the male gaze. Rutgers University-Newark.

Awards and honors In December 2014, the annual Campechada cultural and artistic festival in Old San Juan was dedicated to Báez's career and work. This was the first time a living artist and a woman was celebrated by the festival. National Medal of Culture for Contributions in Art (1997) Honoris Causa Doctored Degree in Art from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (2001)

Quotes "I do not want to do landscapes for tourists nor make pictures of the sentimental, nostalgic or folkloric things that people in this country suffer from due to a lack of identity. I am using landscape because I am interested in the form, because I'm interested in color, because I'm interested in the place... I'm interested in expressing: light—that which surrounds us, the shapes that have formed me, that have made me and that move me."