Fanny Sanín, Acrylic No. 7, 1978, Acrylic on canvas, 56 in. x 68 in. (142.2 cm x 172.7 cm), Gift of the artist, 2017.159

Fanny Sanín recently donated her 1978 canvas Acrylic No. 7 to the Davis Museum. A truly international artist, Sanín was born in Bogotá, Colombia, studied at the University of the Andes, attended graduate programs at the University of Illinois as well as the Chelsea School of Art and Central School of Art in London, lived and worked in Mexico, and is currently based out of New York City. Her prolific career as an abstract artist who paints colorful geometric canvases began in the 1960s. Sanín utilizes color and shape to create symmetrical, flat surfaces that both nod to earlier color field painters yet still feel fresh and vibrant. Her canvases are carefully planned and meticulously painted only after the shapes and colors are fully realized in studies. Acrylic No. 7 is typical of her work from the 1970s, which focused on symmetry via stripes and lines. Constructed by parallel vertical lines in pinks, purples, blues, and browns, this composition is enlivened by small, intersecting horizontal lines that dissect the central panel.

While she lives and works internationally, one can still “…trace her devotion to abstract art to her Latin American roots; her work is contiguous with a great deal of postwar abstract art on that continent.” (Patrick Frank, Fanny Sanín’s Audacious Refinement, p 16) Sanín’s work relates to earlier abstract artists from Latin America who are featured in the collections at the Davis such as Joaquín Torres-García, Rosa Acle, Roberto Matta, and Gunther Gerzo. Acrylic No. 7 builds on the legacy of these artists, while strengthening the holdings and providing a deeper understanding of modern and contemporary Latin American art at the Davis.