Mario Carreno 1948 mixed media. Floating mounted. Provenance: private collection, this painting was bought in the 90s from Roberto Fernandez, and it was later taken from Cuba by its owner. It has a COA.

Biography: A modernist figurative Latin-American painter and magazine illustrator, whose clients included House & Garden, Interiors and Norte, Mario Carreno was born in Havana but lived for extended periods of time in New York City and finally in Chile. He studied art in his native country at San Alejandro Academy; in Madrid, Spain beginning 1931 at the San Fernando School. There he met Pablo Neruda and his circle of intellectual friends including Federico Lorca and Rafael Alberti. To earn a living, he worked as a graphic designer, but those were tough times because of the impending Spanish Civil War. In 1935, he went to Mexico, where he worked with what he described as the "great muralists" including Diego Rivera, David Siqueiros and José Orozco. Influenced by these strong nationalists, he began injecting his own Latin American heritage into his artwork.
Two years later, he was in Paris, staying until 1939, and there attended the Academie Julian and organized his first exhibit. During that time, he began to gain attention as a painter, and he felt heady with the association with avant-garde artists. And then in the 1940s to get away from the dangers of World War II, he moved to New York City where he lived for the next decade and began the abstract painting style that became his signature work.
Mario Carreno died on December 20, 1999 in Santiago, Chile.Collections representing his work include the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Musée de Paume in Paris, San Francisco Museum of Art, the National Museum of Havana, Caracas Bellas Artes Museum, France´s Musée d'Art Moderne of Ceret, Argentina´s Museo de La Plata, Washington´s Latin American Museum of Modern Art and Miami´s Metropolitan Museum.

All authorship of items in this catalog are described according to the following terms:

Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.

By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.

Attributed to [Artist Name] : The work may be ascribed to the artist on the basis of style, but there may be some question as to actual authorship.

In the manner of [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

After [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.

Circle of [Artist Name] : A work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.

Follower of [Artist Name]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

American, 19th century: This work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).

Mint