Irene Rice Pereira was an American abstract artist, poet, and philosopher whose work played a significant role in the development of modernism in the United States. Born on August 5, 1902, in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Pereira was the eldest of four children in a family that would face the hardship of her father's early death. This event forced her to take on the responsibility of supporting her family at a young age, which she did by working as a stenographer. Despite the demands of her job, Pereira's passion for art was evident from her teenage years. She began art lessons at the age of fifteen and continued to nurture her artistic talents while working to support her family. Her mother, an amateur artist, was a significant influence on her, instilling in her a love for the arts. Pereira's early exposure to the bohemian world of Greenwich Village and her affair with the poet and novelist Maxwell Bodenheim further shaped her artistic sensibilities. In 1927, Pereira enrolled in night classes at the Art Students League in New York City, where she studied under Jan Matulka and Richard Lahey. These instructors introduced her to the principles of the European avant-garde, most notably those of the Bauhaus, Cubism, and Constructivism. Her marriage to commercial artist Humberto Pereira in 1929 marked the beginning of her professional life as an artist, and she adopted his surname professionally to navigate the discrimination women faced in the arts. Pereira's travels to Europe and North Africa in the early 1930s were pivotal in her artistic development. She was particularly inspired by the expansive vistas of the Sahara Desert, which influenced her to incorporate visions of light and space into her work. Upon returning to New York, she began experimenting with styles and methods, layering transparent materials to show depth. Her marriage to George Brown, an engineer, in 1942 further encouraged her experimentation with a variety of materials. Throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, Pereira gained recognition for her abstract geometric work, particularly her jewel-like works on fluted and coruscated layers of glass. Her first major retrospective was held at the Whitney Museum in 1953, and that same year, Life magazine published a centerfold photo examination of her work. However, by the late 1950s, Abstract Expressionism had become the dominant movement in Manhattan, and Pereira's work, along with that of other nascent movements, was overshadowed. Pereira was critical of the New York art scene's misogynistic tendencies and the lack of representation and exhibition of women's work in museums. She believed that the European angst brought to America in the wake of the Holocaust had introduced a cynicism and profoundly anti-female sensibility to the art world. Despite these challenges, Pereira continued to create and exhibit her work, showing with other women artists and minorities in New York and Washington. In addition to her painting, Pereira was a prolific writer, publishing ten books of poems and essays. She was named Poet Laureate of the Philippines and continued to write extensively until her death. Her third marriage to Irish poet George Reavey in 1950 marked a period of increased literary output, although they divorced in 1959. Pereira's later years were marked by ill health and financial difficulties. She suffered from severe emphysema and was evicted from her Chelsea studio, where she had painted for more than thirty years. She died on January 11, 1971, in Marbella, Spain, at the age of 68, leaving behind a legacy as a pioneer artist who cared deeply about her fellow artists and was willing to speak out against injustices in the art world. By the 1980s, a new generation of women scholars and curators began to resurrect Pereira's stature, recognizing her as a pioneer who had made significant contributions to modernism. Today, her work is found in museums around the world, and her influence on the development of abstract art continues to be acknowledged and celebrated.

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