Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla (I Am an Island)

Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla (I Am an Island) is the first museum retrospective of the prolific, innovative, and yet largely unknown artist Zilia Sánchez (b. 1926, Havana – lives and works in San Juan). The exhibition features over 40 works from the early 1950s to the present, including paintings, works on paper, shaped canvases, sculptural pieces, graphic illustrations, and ephemera. The retrospective traces Sánchez’s artistic journey from her early days in Cuba to her extended travels in Europe in the 1950s and residence in New York in the 1960s, and finally her move to Puerto Rico, where she has lived and worked since the early 1970s.

Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla is accompanied by a major publication and newly commissioned artist’s documentary about her life and practice.

The presentation of Zilia Sánchez: Soy Isla (I Am an Island) at El Museo del Barrio is supported by The Jacques & Natasha Gelman Foundation, series sponsor of El  Museo del  Barrio’s Women ’s Retrospective  Series. With additional support from The Isabel and Agustín Coppel Collection, and Galerie Lelong & Co.

On view November 20, 2019 – March 22, 2020
Organized by The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

Curated by Dr. Vesela Sretenović, Phillips Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art