José Ruiz de Rivera (September 18, 1904 March 12, 1985) was an American abstract sculptor.
Life and career José Ruiz de Rivera was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and grew up in New Orleans. He dropped out of high school, but finished at a boarding school. He worked on a plantation fixing farm machinery. In 1924, he moved to Chicago. He studied drawing with muralist John W. Norton and worked for the Federal Arts Project of the Works Progress Administration.
In 1932, he moved to Manhattan. He also worked as a model maker for Sikorsky Aircraft. He served in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II, and at the Training Aids Development Center.
In 1946, he had his first one-man show at the Mortimer Levitt Gallery, New York City.
In 1947–52, de Rivera's Black, yellow, red (1942) was exhibited in the 25-venue Painting toward architecture exhibition organized by the Miller Company Collection of Abstract Art. The artwork received a lot of media attention during the exhibition and was the artwork spotlighted (via the one photo accompanying the article) in The New York Times article about the first venue of the exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT.Louchheim, Aline B. (December 21, 1947). "Using the abstract: Hartford show reverals how industrial firm puts a collection to work". The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2017. A photo of the artwork was also used to accompany an article about the exhibition in Newsweek.(January 19, 1948). "Art in the factory". Newsweek. Retrieved January 22, 2017. Black, yellow, red was also featured in Henry-Russell Hitchcock's accompanying book Painting toward architecture (1948), with foreword by Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. (1948). Painting toward architecture. Miller Company: Meriden, CT. Retrieved January 22, 2017. The artwork was also the basis for the cover of a Miller Company heater design catalogue, thematically called "A spiralating heat wave".Louchheim, Aline B. (December 1947). "Abstraction on the assembly line". ARTnews. Retrieved January 22, 2017.
In 1960, he created Construction #72, which was acquired by the University of New Mexico in 1966 and displayed in the foyer of the UNM Fine Arts Center. The sculpture is a curved stainless-steel tube that rotates slowly on a motorized base. Construction #72 was loaned to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and afterward to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the "Sculpture of the 60's" exhibition, before returning to the University of New Mexico.
His sculptures were commissioned for the American Pavilion at the 1958 World's Fair and in 1964 for the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadow, Queens. In 1967 he completed a sculpture that stands on a granite trylon in front of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of History and Technology in Washington D.C.
In 2002–03, the Valerie Carberry Gallery in Chicago exhibited Jose de Rivera: Abstract Sculpture, Painting and Works on Paper.
On March 12, 1984, at the age of 80, de Rivera died at Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City, five weeks after suffering a stroke.
Works Black, Yellow, Red, (1942). National Gallery of Art, 1977.75.8 American Pavilion at the Expo 58 Construction #46, Chazen Museum of Art Form, 1964 World's Fair Infinity, 1967, National Museum of American History Construction #105, 1968, Rochester Institute of Technology Construction #35, 1956, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 66.1277 Construction #72, 1960, University of New Mexico Art Museum, 66.134 Construction #76, 1961, Hirshhorn, 66.1279 Construction #107, 1969, Hirshhorn, 72.91 Construction, Red and Black, 1954, Hirshhorn, 66.1278 Construction in Yellow, Black, Red and White, c. 1949–1952, Hirshhorn, 86.1412 Homage to the World of Minkowski, 1954–1955, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 55.204ab Construction #158, 1974–1975, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985.432ab A Wishing Star, 1956, Dallas Statler Hilton
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External links
"Oral history interview with José de Rivera, February 24, 1968", Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.