Vicente, Esteban

▪ 2002

      Spanish-born American painter (b. Jan. 20, 1903, Turégano, Spain—d. Jan. 10, 2001, Bridgehampton, N.Y.), was a first-generation member of the avant-garde New York school of painting, which flourished from the 1940s to the '80s and established New York City as the epicentre of the international art world. In 1929, after training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, Vicente moved to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso. Vicente divided his time between Paris, Madrid, and Barcelona until 1936, when he relocated to New York City. During the 1940s Vicente began to create abstract paintings. He contributed to the highly publicized “Talent 1950” exhibition at the Kootz Gallery, which showcased paintings by New York school artists, and for awhile he shared a studio with Willem de Kooning. From 1964 until the mid-1980s, Vicente taught art at a number of universities, including Black Mountain (N.C.) College, New York University, and Yale University. In 1998 the Spanish government opened the Esteban Vicente Contemporary Art Museum in Segovia.

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