Eve Peri - Abstract oil on canvas

Circa - 1960

Image - 28" x 32 1/2"

Eve Peri: September 25, 1897 - March 4, 1966 Place of Birth: Bangor, Maine, United States Place of Death: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Place(s) of Residence: New York, New York, United States Mexico

Influenced by Henri Matisse, Zeual Higley Gurnsey

Work Type/Media: Drawings and prints, Painting, Textiles and clothing

Artistic Roles: Collagist, Designer, Embroiderer, Needleworker, Painter, Self-taught Artist, Textile Artist, Watercolorist

Style: Abstraction

Earliest exhibition: Delphic Gallery, New York, NY, USA (1937)

Artist retrospectives: Eve Peri: A Modernist Spirit, Albin I. Kuhn Library and Gallery, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA (1996) Eve Peri: A Retrospective in Painting, Collage, and Fabric, Comfort Gallery, Haverford College, Haverford, PA, USA (1991) Eve Peri: A Retrospective, Lawrence Olivier Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, USA (1982)

Artist's Biography: Born in Bangor, Maine in 1897, Eve Peri learned to sew at an early age. After an early marriage and divorce, Peri moved to Mexico where she had a special-order embroidery business. Influenced by the work of Henri Matisse, she embroidered colorful designs on garments, many of which her clients prized too highly to wear and instead framed as wall hangings. In 1931, realizing her own creative talent, and desiring to expand her work as an embroiderer, Peri decided to become an artist. Peri married Columbian designer and painter Alfonso Umaña Mendez, and together they set up a workshop that produced hand-woven fabrics with modern designs for interiors, theater, and fashion. During the 1930s, deeply influenced by the vibrant colors of Mexico, she also created images of stylized birds, animals, and plants in flat compositions in watercolor on tissue. In 1939, Peri divorced her husband and made her first trip to Paris where her interest in the history of formal embroidery lead her to make a detailed study of the Mathilde Scroll. Her adherence to the tradition of embroidery technique, coupled with her bold colors and creative imagery, culminated in masterfully crafted modernist designs as she continued to experiment with found fabrics and embroidery. Peri left Paris for New York where she continued working with found textile appliqué. She participated in a number of gallery exhibitions and in 1949 exhibited her “Fabric Forms” at the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Detroit Institute of Art. During the late 1950s and early 1960s Peri traveled to Switzerland, Belgium, England, Paris, Basil, Dover, and Rome where she continued collecting textiles for her compositions. Peri moved to Philadelphia in 1964, and opened a store in New Hope featuring her wall hangings, collages, and other household items. She died in 1966.