Loló Soldevilla (1901-1971) was an early leader in the development of hard-edged, geometric compositions that emerged in Cuban painting in the 1950s. Though Sandú Darié had preceeded Soldevilla onto geometric terrain in Cuba, it was Soldevilla’s 1956 return from Paris that sparked a geometric revolution in Cuban art. Her delicate paper collages (1954), low reliefs and free-standing sculptures (1954-1958), together with important curatorial projects in Havana, catalyzed a boom of geometric art that coalesced under the ruberic los diez concretos (the concrete ten). Such works appeared to be a radical and deliberately international break with the vanguard’s earlier pursuit of a modern and authentic expression of Cuban national identity in the 1920s-1940s.
