– country: France
– artists: Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908-1992)
– year: 1980s
– material: etching with embossing on the textured paper
– colour: off white, black
– dimensions: width: 26,5cm | height: 41cm
– condition: perfect vintage condition, with light soiling to the paper
– signed: left: E.A (Épreuve d’Artiste), right: Vieira da Silva
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908–1992) was a highly celebrated Portuguese-French artist, renowned for her complex, maze-like abstract paintings of urban landscapes and city grids. As a pioneering female figure in the post-WWII Paris “School of Paris,” she broke barriers by becoming the first woman to receive France’s prestigious Grand Prix National des Arts in 1966.
She blended her early training under Cubist master Fernand Léger with Futurism and Constructivism. Her work is defined by rhythmic, geometric patterns that evoke labyrinthine cityscapes, libraries, and checkerboards.
Today, her iconic canvases hang in the world’s most prestigious institutions, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Tate Modern in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
