Luchita Hurtado, an artist whose paintings and drawings emphasize the interconnectedness of all living things with a visionary intensity that was almost shamanic, but whose work was only recognized in the art world late in her life, died on Thursday night at her home in Santa Monica, California, she was 99.
Her gallery representative, Andrea Schwan, confirmed the death.
An almost contemporary and friend of Frida Kahlo, Isamu Noguchi and Agnes Martin, among other prominent modern artists, the Venetian-born Ms. Hurtado has been an active participant in the art scenes of New York, Mexico City, Taos, NM, and Los Angeles, where she has lived since 1951.
Her work focused on Surrealism, Mexican muralism, feminism and environmental awareness, and she was associated with Dynaton, a group of mystically minded abstract artists, including her second husband, the Austrian-Mexican Wolfgang Paalen, and her third husband, the American Lee Mullican. However, her art was rarely exhibited until the 1970s, and then only sporadically and in small locations until she was in the 1990s, when the studio manager of Mr. Mullican came across an entire archive of her paintings and drawings.
Working in graphite, watercolor, ink and acrylic, Mrs. Hurtado paints bodies – her own, as totemic figures – combining landscapes and interiors in electrical expressions of roots and communality. She sought out various sources of inspiration, including ancient traditions – cave paintings in Lascaux, France; Olmec is headquartered in La Venta, Mexico; tribal dances in Taos – like mid-20th century schools of abstraction.
