Fanny Sanín: Geometric Equations

Opening at Americas Society on June 4, 2025, Fanny Sanín: Geometric Equations is the first institutional survey of Fanny Sanín’s paintings in New York—where the artist has lived and worked for fifty-four years. This panoramic show includes monumental acrylic paintings, smaller compositions, as well as studies for the large works, reinforcing Sanín’s position as an indispensable figure within the development of abstract art in both Latin America and the United States. The exhibition features several gestural abstract compositions demonstrating the strength of the artist’s early work before she developed her characteristic geometry-based production. Twenty-one major paintings and two dozen smaller studies are installed in loosely chronological order to guide the visitor through the subtle changes in Sanín’s use of color and form to explore geometry’s possibilities. An ample selection of preparatory sketches further demonstrates the painter’s meticulous process. Sanín’s exacting working methods have resulted in a coherent body of work that reflects an unrelenting search for a comprehensive mode of organizing visual and sensual phenomena.

Dedicated primarily to geometric abstraction, Fanny Sanín’s prolific career spans more than five decades. Born in Bogotá in 1938, Sanín studied fine art at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, and later, at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and the Chelsea School of Art, London. She then moved to Monterrey, Mexico, where she had her first solo exhibition in 1964. By the time she relocated permanently to Manhattan in 1971, Sanín had already begun advancing her own mode of depicting complex hard-edged geometric forms with interweaving lines and complementary or contrasting colors.

Fanny Sanín: Geometric Equations is curated by Edward J. Sullivan with exhibition design by Carlos Motta.

To accompany the show, Americas Society will present a public program and publish a catalogue. On Thursday and Friday, June 26 and June 27, 2025, in collaboration with the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, Americas Society will host a two-day symposium examining the contributions of women to postwar abstraction across the Americas.

For press inquiries, contact mediarelations@as-coa.org. For general inquiries, contact art@as-coa.org.