Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this manuscript, Gego explains what she would say if people asked her about the influences on her work, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. She states that so far she would rather leave the responses to “historians and scholars.” She [...]

This prose poem is a brief reflection on “space” and “no space” that Gego wrote in English while she was in California in 1966. She starts by considering a wall and its holes from which to let her vision and imagination take off for the [...]

This document is a typewritten letter from Gego to Delpre C.A., Unidad Comercial La Florida, Caracas, dated June 10, 1972; it is addressed specifically to the architecture firm Siso, Shaw and Associates. In the letter, Gego informs the architects [...]

Gego—who was an art teacher as well as an artist—wrote “The History of Art Schools” by hand in Spanish in around 1964. In it, she claims that that history is parallel to the creative development of an individual and of his specific works. [...]

This brief poem by Gego was originally written in German in 1935. It is dedicated to her mother (Elizabeth Dehn) with the phrase “For Mom from Gertrud.” It begins with the line “I built a castle in the air,” after which the young Gego speaks [...]

This letter written in English by Gego, a Venezuelan artist of German origin, is addressed to Mr. James Harithas, director of the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York. Dated July 21, 1972, the letter states that despite her enthusiasm, Gego must [...]

This letter written by Gego in English is addressed to Mrs. Sandra Trop Blumberg, executive director of the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York. In it, Gego acknowledges receipt of Blumberg’s letter, dated July 3, and informs her that she [...]

This letter, written in English by Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994), a Venezuelan artist of German origin, was sent to Stanton L. Catlin, director of the Center for Inter-American Relations Art Gallery, New York, in 1970; it addresses specific [...]

In this letter addressed to professor Frithjof Trapp at the Universität von Hamburg, Gego, the German-born Venezuelan artist, looks back on her life and talks about her origins in the city of Hamburg, Germany: her family, her schooling, her [...]

These notes by Gego, a Venezuelan artist of German origin, give shape to an interplay of words and voices—both real and invented—that ensues by means of succession, combination, and juxtaposition. It is not until near the end of the notes that [...]

In this manuscript, the German-born Venezuelan artist Gego shares her thoughts about the line, denying that it originates in the sensory field or the knowledge field [...]

The German-born Venezuelan artist Gego briefly explains some of her thoughts on the meaning and use of the line. In her view the human idea of “a line” is abstract, since it does not exist in nature. But as a medium it can express descriptive [...]

In this brief article, the German-born Venezuelan artist, Gego, rejects the term “sculpture” as a description of her work [...]

In this manuscript, Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt, 1912–1994), a Venezuelan artist of German origin, provides a brief chronology of the main conceptual and structural “ideas and interests” that drove her work from 1956 to 1976. Gego specifies her [...]

In this speech to her companions at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Gego describes the basic tenets of her work and outlines the projects she plans to present. She explains how her use of line has evolved over the course of time, from her early [...]

In response to the questions put to her by Venezuelan filmmaker José Antonio Pantin, Gego remarks on the origin of her art and the processes it involves, focusing specifically on her three-dimensional work. She states that her works have been [...]