Alceu Ribeiro

ALCEU RIBEIRO (Artigas, Uruguay, 1919 - Palma de Mallorca, 2013).
"Figura", 1992.
Assemblage in painted wood.
Signed, titled and dated on the back.
Measurements: 46.5 x 23.5 cm.
Painter, sculptor and muralist, Alceu Ribeiro trained with Joaquín Torres-García starting in 1939, thanks to a scholarship that allowed him to settle with his brother, also an artist, in Montevideo. He studied with the master for ten years, until his death in 1949, and during his student years his work was already recognized with several prizes at the National Salon of Montevideo, in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1945. The following year, in 1946, he became known in Paris through the Muestra de Pintura Moderna Uruguaya held there. In 1949 he founded the workshop El Molino, which he converted into the center of Montevideo's intelligentsia, and that same year he carried out his first commission for mural painting for the Palacio de la Luz in the Uruguayan capital. Shortly afterwards, in 1953, he held his first individual exhibition at the Faculty of Architecture of the same city. He also continued to participate in official exhibitions with great success, and carried out important mural projects, both pictorial and sculptural. In 1962 he becomes a professor at the Universidad del Trabajo in Montevideo, and the following year he makes a long working trip to Europe, where he leaves after holding several exhibitions on tour in South America, among other places at the Zea Museum in Medellin (Colombia). In 1964 he returns to Montevideo, and three years later he holds his first solo exhibition in the United States, at the Mayfair Gallery in Washington D.C. From then on Ribeiro exhibited his work in museums and galleries in South America, the United States and Europe, finally settling in 1979 in Palma de Mallorca. He is currently represented in the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Juan Manuel Blanes Museum in Montevideo, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the National Museum of São Paulo and other public and private collections in Europe and America.