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Cuban artist Nila Arias Mason is on her way to posthumous recognition

Miami, Dec. 1 (EFE). – The Reina Sofía in Madrid will be the first important art museum in the world to contain the work of the Cuban artist Nela Arias-Misson (1915-2015), who started in Abstract Expressionism in the United States of America and lived and created for many years in Spain, but until now she is little known in the art world. “We hope it will be the beginning of a very long career, because we are convinced from day one that her work matters, it matters and it needs to be recognized,” said Flor Ana Mayoral, co-founder of the Nella Foundation. EFE on Thursday Arias Mason. On the occasion of Miami Art Week, the Foundation, which is responsible for hundreds of works by an artist who did not want to give up her creations, presented today, Thursday, to the press, the two paintings that will be transferred to the Reina Sofia Museum to the Reina Sofia Museum. Forms part of his collection: ‘Homage to Goya’ and ‘Table with Shoes and Lamp’. Both works were painted by Arias Mason in the 1960s in Spain, the country his family came from and to which he had moved after training in Abstract Expressionism in New York. Dark by Mason The artist, who agreed with her husband of 40 years, Alain Mason, to use the compound surname Arias Mason, was a New York pupil of Hans Hofmann. In Provincetown, he took lessons from Hoffman and associated with creators such as Mark Rothko, Wallace Tyng, Ellen and Willem de Kooning, Karel Abel, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, and others. “In 1957, Abstract Expressionism was a completely masculine movement, not allowing any women to shine, and many women even changed their names to a masculine form so they wouldn’t be recognized as female painters,” Mayoral said. “That’s why it’s important to acknowledge it,” Mayoral said. The ceremony of presenting the two paintings was attended by artists and representatives of the cultural and artistic world of Miami (Florida), where the artist retired at the end of her life with her daughter and died in 2015 eight weeks before the date. On her 100th birthday, by which time she had already divorced Alain Arias Messon, a poet of Belgian descent 21 years her junior, who was also present today and in a voice broken with emotion, she told EFE that “Nila deserves recognition.” According to Mayoral, the Nela Arias-Misson Foundation presented a series of photos of the artist’s work to Reina Sofía and the board decided which ones he wanted. He added that “these two works are important because they were created in Spain”, specifically in Ibiza and Madrid. Mayoral stressed that Nella never stopped painting and always had her own style, “a very unique style”, but in life she sold very little. Everything before selling Sometimes, for example, when someone wanted to buy a work she liked, she would say to the person “Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll sell it to you, come the day after tomorrow,” and what, she stressed, was copying her own work and selling her new work. “I only sold to people who seemed to her to be able to get her work, and she didn’t want to be associated with any exhibition or ask someone how she created her work.” She added that the legacy of Neila Arias Mason in the possession of the Foundation consists of about 130 works in oil and more than 600 drawings, among other Mayoral artworks, of Cuban origin like the aforementioned artist. The museum dedicated to Wilfredo Lam in Cuba contains a small work by Nila Arias Mason, and there are a few other works by her scattered among collectors in the United States and Europe. All the documents in the artist’s archive, including the photographs, were promised to the American Smithsonian Institution, which has already begun to receive them and is also aware of everything related to the art of Arias Mason. The remainder will return to the Foundation, whose mission is to “acquaint Nella’s legacy, educate the public about their work, and showcase or display their work in major museums.” In other words, we want the world to know that this woman existed at a time when women were unrecognized, and now that all this time has passed, they should know who she was and the importance she really has in the art world, because she created a style that is considered important today. Anna Mengotti (c) Agency EFE