María Freire

Biography

The first push toward modernity for María Freire came from African masks and pre-Columbian art. But it is better to begin earlier, with her training.

She was born on 7 November 1917 in Montevideo. From 1938 to 1943 she studied painting and sculpture at the Círculo de Bellas Artes of the Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay (the Labour University of Uruguay) under José Cuneo Perinetti, Guillermo Laborde and Severino Pose, then at the Consejo de Educación Técnico Profesional (the Council for Technical and Professional Education) under Antonio Pose. In 1946 Freire began working with abstraction: flat forms in painting, and mobile sculptures made of materials unusual for the time. In 1952 she met the artist José Pedro Costigliolo, who was following the same path. They came to share a studio and to travel together, and later married. Together they founded the Grupo de Arte No Figurativo (the Non-Figurative Art Group); other Uruguayan artists joined it, among them Antonio Llorens. In 1952 and 1953 exhibitions of non-figurative art were held in Montevideo at the Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes (the Young Men’s Christian Association), and in 1954 a joint exhibition of Costigliolo, Freire and Llorens at the Galería Salamanca.

In 1953 she visited the 2nd São Paulo Art Biennial and for the first time saw at close range the work of Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart. It strengthened her abstract language. In 1957, together with Costigliolo, she received the Gallinal scholarship, which allowed them to travel to Europe: they studied at the Stedelijk Museum and at the Louvre, where they were taught by Bernard Dorival and André Varagnac. At the São Paulo Biennial that same year she received an honorific prize. In 1966 Freire returned to Europe to continue her studies.

From 1962 to 1973 she wrote the art criticism column in the newspaper “Acción” and taught drawing, as well as art history and culture, on the architecture preparatory courses in Colonia del Sacramento. There she became friends with Rhod Rothfuss and Gyula Kosice, prominent figures of the Madí movement. She was also in touch with the circle of abstract artists around Aldo Pellegrini in Argentina and felt close to the Brazilian concrete and neoconcrete artists: Amílcar de Castro, Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica. Even so, her path was her own. She worked in series, and the subjects were colour, rhythm and pure form themselves.

In 1958–1960 came the series “Sudamérica” (South America): polygonal planes in a restricted palette. Later the palette became more expressive and cuts and signs appeared in the planes, giving rise to the series “Capricornio” (Capricorn) and “Córdoba”. The series “Vibrante” (1975–1985), whose title means “vibrating”, is devoted to light and colour. In the early 1990s she took up “El oro de los tigres” (The Gold of Tigers): dark structures on a yellow ground. By the end of the decade the geometry of her paintings increasingly conveyed the sensuality of colour. The same motif recurs in her work in different combinations, with a rhythm that seems random; sharp contours and flat colours join the rational to the sensual.

Between 1954 and 1992 she had 17 solo exhibitions in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Brussels and Washington; among them were shows at the museums of modern art in São Paulo and Rio (1956), at Galerie Les Contemporains in Brussels (1959) and at the Panamerican Union in Washington (1966). In 1966 she represented Uruguay at the 33rd Venice Biennale. Retrospectives were held at the Galería Bruzzone (1990) and at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Montevideo (1998). Prizes at the national salons came almost without interruption: a bronze medal in 1953, silver in 1955, gold in 1961 and 1966, the Grand Painting Prize in 1967, acquisition prizes in 1969 and 1970. In 1978 she won the Grand Painting Prize at the Salón de Primavera in Salto, and in 1996 the Premio Figari of the Central Bank of Uruguay for lifetime achievement.

Costigliolo died in 1985, and she took his loss hard; their work is often seen almost as a unit. From 2000 Freire made large sculptures for public spaces. Her work is in the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales in Montevideo, the Juan Manuel Blanes Museum, the museums of modern art in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the Museo Reina Sofía and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

She died on 19 June 2015 in Montevideo. In 2007 the 52nd Premio Nacional de Artes Visuales of Uruguay was named after her, and in November 2024 a crater on Mercury was named in her honour.