Sans-Titre, 1998

Carlos Cruz-Diez   Master Artists

Carlos Cruz-Diez (Caracas, Venezuela, 1923 - Paris, France, 2019) is one of the major figures of kinetic and optical art and has received numerous awards for his work. His practice positions him as a contemporary theorist of color. His visual research, based on three chromatic conditions -- subtractive color, additive color, and reflection -- has contributed to a new approach of the color phenomenon by expanding his perceptual universe.

Carlos Cruz-Diez based his practice on the color as an autonomous reality, without any anecdote, evolving in real-time and real space without any help from the form or the support. There are eight axes of research that reveal the different behaviors of color: Additive Color, Physichromie, Chromatic Induction, Chromointerference, Transchromia, Chromosaturation, Chromoscope, and Color in Space.

In 1940, Carlos Cruz Diez was studying at the Art School in Caracas. In 1944, he was working as a graphic designer for the "Creole Petroleum Corporation". In 1946, he became the Creative Director of the advertising agency "McCann-Erickson in Venezuela. In 1957, he founded the "Estudio Artes Visuales" dedicated to graphic and industrial design. In 1959, he completed his first work entitled “Additive Color and Physiochromia".

In 2005, his family created the "Cruz-Diez Foundation" dedicated to the conservation, development, dissemination, and research of the artist's conceptual heritage. Between 1972 and 1973, he taught "Kinetic Techniques" at the Beaux-Arts School in Paris. In 2012, he was appointed Officiel the National Order of the Legion of Honour.