Alejandro Otero

Venezuelan

(1921–1990)

Alejandro Otero was a painter and sculptor recognized in Venezuela as the father of abstraction in painting. He studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Caracas, moving to Paris in 1945, where he began producing some of his most important bodies of work, making the transition from figuration to abstraction. During the winter of 1951, Otero travelled to the Netherlands to study the work of Piet Mondrian, whose paintings would prove to be enormously influential to Otero’s development of his Coloritmos.

The Coloritmos are a series of works exploring the musicality of color; they follow a similar typology in terms of dimensions and were painted in Duco (a glossy industrial lacquer) that unfold in countless serial variations of a single composition. All are based on a system of black and white stripes into which colored elements are inserted, fused or spaced, allowing a rhythmic reading of the composition. Otero made sketches for all of the Coloritmos between 1955 and 1960. They are numbered, indicating the sequential order of the conception of the compositions. The very first Coloritmo painting, No.1, was made in 1955.

Alejandro Otero

Venezuelan

(1921–1990)

Alejandro Otero was a painter and sculptor recognized in Venezuela as the father of abstraction in painting. He studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Caracas, moving to Paris in 1945, where he began producing some of his most important bodies of work, making the transition from figuration to abstraction. During the winter of 1951, Otero travelled to the Netherlands to study the work of Piet Mondrian, whose paintings would prove to be enormously influential to Otero’s development of his Coloritmos.

The Coloritmos are a series of works exploring the musicality of color; they follow a similar typology in terms of dimensions and were painted in Duco (a glossy industrial lacquer) that unfold in countless serial variations of a single composition. All are based on a system of black and white stripes into which colored elements are inserted, fused or spaced, allowing a rhythmic reading of the composition. Otero made sketches for all of the Coloritmos between 1955 and 1960. They are numbered, indicating the sequential order of the conception of the compositions. The very first Coloritmo painting, No.1, was made in 1955.

Coloritmo 71a

1960–1971

Duco on wood

180.3 × 48.3 × 3.8 cm; 71 × 19 × 1 1/2 in

Sometimes the dates of the sketches for the Coloritmos and the paintings made from them differ, as in many cases later paintings in the series were produced long after the sketch. In the case of Coloritmo 71a, the sketch would have been executed in 1960, and the painting in 1971. On many occasions, the artist produced a second version of an already executed Coloritmo, with the second work identical in composition and color to the first one, but generally smaller in size and numbered with the same numeral as the first version, followed by the letter A. In total, there are 90 distinct works known from the Coloritmo series.

Coloritmo 2

1956

Duco on wood

200.3 × 52.7 cm; 78 7/8 × 20 3/4 in

Otero’s Coloritmos are oblong, rectangular, and follow a similar typology in terms of dimensions, made with Duco (a glossy industrial lacquer) that unfold in countless serial variations of composition. All are based on a system of black and white stripes into which colored elements are inserted, fused or spaced, allowing a rhythmic reading of the composition. Otero made sketches for all of the Coloritmos between 1955 and 1960. They are numbered, indicating the sequential order of the conception of the compositions. The very first Coloritmo painting, No.1, was made in 1955. This piece, Coloritmo 2, was made in 1956, making it among the most important works in the Coloritmos series.

© 2025 Kanbas. Any images or other visual representations of artworks are © their respective Artist or Estate, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

© 2025 Kanbas. Any images or other visual representations of artworks are © their respective Artist or Estate, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

© 2025 Kanbas. Any images or other visual representations of artworks are © their respective Artist or Estate, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.