Rojo y Negro (Red and Black), 1993

Carmen Herrera was born in 1915, in Cuba. After demonstrating a natural talent for art, Herrera began formal lessons at the age of 8. When she was 14 years old, her parents enrolled her in Marymount School in Paris where Carmen continued to study art. In 1937, Herrera moved to the United States with her husband and continued her education at the Art Students League in New York while also taking classes at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Originally trained as an architect, Carmen Herrera creates artwork that features strong lines and symmetry. Her precision to detail, measurement, and scale leads to striking minimalist productions featuring very few colors with geometric form. Even after all her training, and the many works of art she has produced, Carmen Herrera was not discovered as an artist until she was 89 years old. At that time, she sold her first piece. At the age of 101, she finally had a show to display her work, in New York City's Whitney Museum.