{{Short description|American painter}} {{Infobox artist | honorific_prefix = | name = Candida Alvarez<!-- include middle initial, if not specified in birth_name --> | honorific_suffix = | image = Candida Alvarez.png | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different than name --> | birth_date = 1955 | birth_place = Brooklyn, New York, US | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} --> | death_place = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{Coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline}} --> | nationality = | education = Yale School of Art, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Fordham University | alma_mater = | known_for = Painting, drawing, public art | notable_works = | style = | movement = | spouse = | children = Ramon Alvarez-Smikle | awards = US Latinx Artist Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Pollock-Krasner | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = [https://www.candidaalvarez.com/ Candida Alvarez] | module = }} thumb|right|upright=1.4|Candida Alvarez, ''Are you listening to this?'', acrylic on linen, metallic marker, liquid glitter, 84" x 72", 2022.

'''Candida Alvarez''' (born 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for her paintings and drawings.<ref name="Voon20">Voon, Claire. [https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/candida-alvarez-monique-meloche-interview-1202681003/ "Chicago Legend Candida Alvarez Finds Comfort—and Reprieve from Trauma—in Abstraction,"] ''ARTnews'', March 13, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2022.</ref><ref name="Snodgrass17">Snodgrass, Susan. [https://theseenjournal.org/arriving-candida/ "Arriving Here: Candida Alvarez,"] ''The Seen'', Issue 05, 2017. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Waxman17">Waxman, Lori. [https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=5d6b5e3b-cb5c-4c6c-9188-093f2e3e5fc7 "Candida Alvarez, Up to Try Anything,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241127085436/https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=5d6b5e3b-cb5c-4c6c-9188-093f2e3e5fc7 |date=2024-11-27 }} ''Chicago Tribune'', August 3, 2017. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref>

Alvarez has exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art,<ref name="WM2">Whitney Museum of American Art. [https://whitney.org/exhibitions/no-existe "no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria,"] Exhibitions. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> MoMA PS1,<ref name="MoMA">Museum of Modern Art. [https://www.moma.org/artists/70128 Candida Alvarez], Artists. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago,<ref name="MCA">Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. [https://mcachicago.org/Exhibitions/2020/The-Long-Dream "The Long Dream,"] Exhibitions. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston,<ref name="Glentzer13">Glentzer, Molly. [https://www.houstonchronicle.com/culture/arts/article/Outside-the-Lines-opens-up-a-world-of-4968442.php "'Outside the Lines' opens up a world of abstraction,'] ''Houston Chronicle'', November 8, 2013. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> Her work belongs to the public art collections of the Whitney,<ref name="WM">Whitney Museum of American Art. [https://whitney.org/collection/works/10940 Candida Alvarez], Collection. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> Art Institute of Chicago,<ref name="AIC">Art Institute of Chicago. [https://www.artic.edu/artworks/260696/mary-in-the-sky-with-diamonds ''Mary in the Sky With Diamonds'', Candida Alvarez], Artworks. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> San Jose Museum of Art,<ref name="SJMA">San Jose Museum of Art. [https://sjmusart.org/exhibition/evergreen-art-collection "Evergreen: Art from the Collection,"] Exhibitions. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,<ref name="VMFA">Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. [https://vmfa.museum/piction/6027262-193514684/ ''Chill'', Candida Alvarez], Collection. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> among others. She was named a 2022 US Latinx Artist Fellow<ref name="Velie22">Velie, Elaine. [https://hyperallergic.com/732710/15-latinx-artist-fellows-receive-50k-grants/ "15 Latinx Artist Fellows Receive $50K Grants,"] ''Hyperallergic'', May 15, 2022. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> and has been recognized by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation,<ref name="FCA">Foundation for Contemporary Arts. [https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/candida-alvarez/ Candida Alvarez], Recipients. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> Joan Mitchell Foundation<ref name="JMF">Joan Mitchell Foundation. [https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/candida-alvarez Candida Alvarez], Supported Artists. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> and Pollock-Krasner Foundation.<ref name="PKF">Pollock-Krasner Foundation. [https://www.pkf-imagecollection.org/artist/Candida_Alvarez/?list_url=%2Fartists%3Fsort%3DAE%26page%3D1%26letter%3DA Candida Alvarez], Artists. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> She lives and works in Chicago and Baroda, Michigan and is a professor of painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.<ref name="Velie22"/><ref name="SAIC">{{Cite web |title=Candida Alvarez – SAIC Faculty Sabbatical Exhibit |url=https://sites.saic.edu/facultysabbatical/faculty/candida-alvarez/ |access-date=2024-10-14 |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Education and career== Alvarez was born in 1955 in Brooklyn to parents who had arrived from Puerto Rico two years earlier. She grew up in a high-rise building in the Farragut Houses public housing project.<ref name="MacAdam93">Barbara A. MacAdam, "Candida Alvarez, Myth, Memory and Old Lace," ''ARTnews'', February 1993, p. 67.</ref><ref name="Jones20">Jones, Kellie. "When Painting Stepped Out to Lunch," [https://www.worldcat.org/title/1141975646 ''Candida Alvarez: Here. A Visual Reader''], Chicago: The Green Lantern Press. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref><ref name="Foumberg17">Foumberg, Jason. "Candida’s Coloring Book," ''Chicago Magazine'', May 2017, p. 43.</ref> Alvarez attended Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York and received a BA in studio art/liberal arts in 1977; she studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1981.<ref name="JMF"/> In her early career in New York, she worked as a curator at El Museo del Barrio<ref name="MacAdam93"/><ref name="Quiles20">Quiles, Daniel R. "Numbers and Dreams: Candida Alvarez, 1976–1988," [https://www.worldcat.org/title/1141975646 ''Candida Alvarez: Here. A Visual Reader''], Chicago: The Green Lantern Press. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> and exhibited in group shows at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, MoMA PS1, Studio Museum in Harlem (artist residency) and Jamaica Arts Center.<ref name="MoMA"/><ref name="BM">Brooklyn Museum. [https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/3166 "Recollections: Works on Paper by Candida Alvarez & Vincent D. Smith,"] Exhibitions. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Brenson87">Brenson, Michael. [https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/09/arts/art-2-looks-at-cleve-gray-s-works.html "New Visions at Soho20 Gallery,"] ''The New York Times'', January 9, 1987. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> During that time, she had solo shows at Exit Art (1985), Queens Museum (1991), and Bronx Museum of the Arts (1992), among others.<ref name="QM">Queens Museum. [https://queensmuseum.org/history/ History.] Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Zimmer93">Zimmer, William. [https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/03/nyregion/art-echoes-of-paris-in-a-montevideo-school.html?searchResultPosition=5 "Echoes of Paris in a Montevideo School,"] ''The New York Times'', January 3, 1993. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref>

In 1995, she enrolled at the Yale School of Art, studying with Mel Bochner, Rochelle Feinstein and Howardena Pindell.<ref name="Myers20">Myers, Terry R. "Recognize," [https://www.worldcat.org/title/1141975646 ''Candida Alvarez: Here. A Visual Reader''], Chicago: The Green Lantern Press. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref><ref name="Waxman17"/> Her studies there set the stage for the playful form of abstraction for which she is known, and culminated in an MFA in 1997.<ref name="Quiles20"/> The following year, she accepted a position at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is the F. H. Sellers Professor in Painting.<ref name="SAIC"/><ref name="Leahy20">{{Cite web |last=Leahy |first=Brian T. |date=2020-05-01 |title=Candida Alvarez |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/candida-alvarez-247089/ |access-date=2024-10-14 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}}</ref> In her later career, Alvarez has been included in major surveys of abstraction ("Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today," Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2017)<ref name="KMCA">Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art". Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. [https://www.kemperart.org/exhibitions/magnetic-fields-expanding-american-abstraction-1960s-today "Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180714222018/https://www.kemperart.org/exhibitions/magnetic-fields-expanding-american-abstraction-1960s-today |date=2018-07-14 }} Exhibitions. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> and Latinx art ("Estamos Bien – La Trienal 20/21," El Museo del Barrio, 2021; "Latinx Abstract," BRIC, 2021; "no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria," Whitney Museum, 2022).<ref name="Passy21">Passy, Charles. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/el-museo-del-barrio-hosts-first-triennial-exhibition-11615325292 "El Museo del Barrio Hosts First Triennial Exhibition,"] ''The Wall Street Journal'', March 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Witt">Witt, Bree. [https://www.saic.edu/news/candida-alvarez-makes-her-mark "Candida Alvarez Makes Her Mark,"] News, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref><ref name="WM2"/> She has had solo exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center (2012),<ref name="Picard13"/> Chicago Cultural Center (2017),<ref name="Miller17">Chris Miller, Chris. [https://art.newcity.com/2017/06/26/painting-a-life-in-bloom/ "Painting A Life In Bloom,"] ''New City'', July 15, 2017. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> GAVLAK Gallery (Palm Beach, 2019; Los Angeles, 2021)<ref name="JMF"/> and Monique Meloche Gallery (Chicago, 2020),<ref name="Voon20"/> among other venues.

In 2017, six existing color works by Alvarez were adapted by Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo for her "new camouflage" Comme des Garçons haute couture menswear collection.<ref name="Marevska17">Marevska, Anna. ["Comme des Garçons Spring 2017 Men’s Collection Features a Chicago Artist’s Print,"] ''Fashion Files'', February 1, 2017. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Foumberg17"/>

==Work and reception== Alvarez reworks both materials and methods in her work, resisting a single visual methodology and disrupting distinctions between abstraction, representation and conceptualism.<ref name="Myers20"/><ref name="MacAdam93"/> Her painting synthesizes a wide array of modes: floating color fields, highly structured geometries, subdued figural portraits, text and invisible guiding systems.<ref name="Voon20"/> Critic Susan Snodgrass has described Alvarez’s process as syncretic and belonging "to a strategy of cultural fusion and hybridity that allows passage between different contexts and histories, as does her use of personal narratives and private symbols as markers of identity."<ref name="Snodgrass17"/>

thumb|left|upright=1.3|Candida Alvarez, ''Sit, Stand & Kneel'', acrylic and gel medium on canvas, 63" x 76.25", 1986.

===Early work=== In the 1980s, Alvarez produced largely representational paintings that drew on her city experiences and Puerto Rican heritage, mixing portraiture, landscape, written words and personal iconography.<ref name="Brenson87"/><ref name="Fusco88">Fusco, Coco. "Hispanic Artists and Other Slurs," ''The Village Voice'', August 9, 1980, p. 22.</ref><ref name="Cyphers90">Cyphers, Peggy. "Candida Alvarez," ''Arts'', February 1990, p. 100.</ref><ref name="MacAdam93"/> She often portrayed family members; ''He loved to dream'' (1985) was a mixed-mode work of flat planes, sharp angles and relief imagery depicting her father.<ref name="Pacheco91">Pacheco, Patrick. "The New Faith in Painting," ''Art & Antiques'', May 1991, p. 61–2.</ref><ref name="Quiles20"/> Paintings such as the three-panel, altar-piece-like work, ''Sit, Stand & Kneel'' (1986) or ''Soy Boricua (I am Puerto Rican)'' (1989) portrayed passive, dutiful, wary or increasingly powerful female protagonists as they navigated roles and identities.<ref name="Miller17"/><ref name="Waxman17"/><ref name="Myers20"/> Critics characterized these color- and imagery-laden revelations of self and traditional family life as introspective, moody, emotionally charged and reminiscent of magic realism, naïve art or confessional poetry;<ref name="Brenson87"/><ref name="Miller17"/><ref name="Waxman17"/> ''Arts Magazine'''s Peggy Cyphers likened them to the art of Marc Chagall and Paul Klee.<ref name="Cyphers90"/>

In subsequent work, Alvarez experimented with new mixed-media materials, textures and multi-panel formats that functioned as both structural and narrative devices.<ref name="MacAdam93"/><ref name="Miller17"/> Her solo exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (1992) and New Britain Museum of American Art (1996) featured multi-image paintings of rudimentary human forms and abstract primal energies that evoked themes of organic or inner growth.<ref name="Zimmer93"/><ref name="Cotter92">Cotter, Holland. [https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/18/arts/art-in-review-163092.html "Candida Alvarez, Bronx Museum of the Arts,"] ''The New York Times'', December 18, 1992, p. C37. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Zimmer96">Zimmer, William. [https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/nyregion/art-sculpture-of-large-gestures-and-a-sense-of-place.html?searchResultPosition=4 "Sculpture of Large Gestures And a Sense of Place,"] ''The New York Times'', June 16, 1996. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> ''New York Times'' critic Holland Cotter wrote that the " lyrical, painterly work" charted progress "from darkness to light and from fragmentation to wholeness," drawing strength from its ambiguity regarding the relationships between human figures and natural forces.<ref name="Cotter92"/> The panels hinted at sequential, internal passages while also serving as external, quasi-architectural spaces, alluding to the 14th-floor housing-project windows she looked out of as a child (e.g., ''Sisters I'' and ''Sisters 2'', 1992; ''Sixteen Stories'', 1996).<ref name="Zimmer96"/><ref name="Jones20"/><ref name="Myers20"/> This work presaged her later interest in minimalist seriality and gestural abstraction.<ref name="Snodgrass17"/>

===Later work=== During her time at Yale, Alvarez studied color theory and began experimenting with intuitive processes, puzzles and games, in part influenced by her friendship with the minimalist and conceptual artist Sol LeWitt.<ref name="Foumberg17"/><ref name="Snodgrass17"/><ref name="Jones20"/> These strategies pushed her work toward abstraction and remixed its clearly autobiographical aspects, while maintaining its attention to process and inspirational roots.<ref name="Myers20"/><ref name="Jones20"/> Paintings such as ''Tossing Pennies'' (1995), which incorporated pennies and colorful painted orbs as nodes in a connect-the-dots scheme, were determined by chance; in similarly vibrant and graphic works, she used letters and numbers as organizing systems (e.g., ''Louise'' or ''Jimmy'', both 1996).<ref name="Snodgrass17"/><ref name="Myers20"/>

In the 2000s, Alvarez's work has been characterized by a decorative visuality and postmodern versatility that ranges across contemporary styles.<ref name="Snodgrass03">Snodgrass, Susan, "Candida Alvarez at TBA," ''Art in America'', May 2003, p. 154.</ref><ref name="Picard13">Picard, Caroline. [http://magazine.art21.org/2013/01/22/center-field-art-in-the-middle-mashed-up-and-shredded-into-space-an-interview-with-candida-alvarez/#.Y3Keeh1MFYc "Center Field, Art in the Middle/Mashed up and Shredded into Space, An Interview with Candida Alvarez,"] ''Art21'', January 22, 2013. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Miller17"/><ref name="Snodgrass17"/> Her TBA Exhibition Space show (2005) featured quirky, graffiti-like drawings and large fabric pieces evoking toys, keepsakes and personal history. Drawings such as ''Celia Mia'' (2000–1) juxtaposed floral and geometric patterns, text and playful characters, while the fabric works depicted such figures with bold black shapes and lines stitched in black embroidery floss on curtain-like squares of black cotton.<ref name="Snodgrass03"/>

Alvarez's later exhibitions—"Mambomountain" (Hyde Park Art Center, 2012), "Here" (Chicago Cultural Center, 2017), "Estoy Bien" (Monique Meloche Gallery, 2020) and "Palimpsest" (GAVLAK Los Angeles, 2021)—have been more painting-focused.<ref name="HPAC">Hyde Park Art Center. [https://www.hydeparkart.org/exhibition-archive/candida-alvarez-mambomountain/ Cándida Alvarez: Mambomountain], Exhibitions. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref><ref name="Waxman17"/><ref name="Leahy20"/><ref name="Gavlak">GAVLAK Los Angeles. [https://www.gavlakgallery.com/exhibitions/candida-alvarez-palimpsest Candida Alvarez: Palimpsest], Exhibitions. Retrieved November 28, 2022.</ref> In monumental works such as ''mary in the sky with diamonds'' (2005), ''arroz amargo'' (2010) and ''hi ho silver'' (2008), she created shifting, layered surfaces packed with textures, ideas and scraps of pop culture.<ref name="Snodgrass17"/><ref name="Picard13"/><ref name="Bui20">Bui, Phong H. [https://brooklynrail.org/2020/03/art/CANDIDA-ALVAREZ-with-Phong-H-Bui "Candida Alvarez with Phong H. Bui,"] ''The Brooklyn Rail'', March 2020. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> ''New City'' compared the billowing shapes, sinuous lines and snippets of text of the latter painting to "a cartoon that’s been chopped up in a blender."<ref name="Miller17"/> The "Here" retrospective presented nearly sixty works spanning forty years. The show was achronolgically arranged to create connections, and united by "camouflage" baseboard molding running throughout that derived from the work used in her Comme des Garçons collaboration.<ref name="Myers20"/> New works included subtle plays between inside and outside, felt and seen (e.g., ''Listening to Haruki Murakami while looking at a sunset'', 2016) and whimsical challenges to the rigidity and authority of the modernist grid.<ref name="Snodgrass17"/><ref name="Waxman17"/> Examples of the latter included ''Remembering Sol LeWitt'' (2016)—which combined a predictable checkerboard, a casually meandering web, gold glitter and scripted text—and the spatially disorienting ''Rainbows on my Studio Floor'' (2016), a receding, slightly askew pattern of saturated parallelograms based the exhibition space's tiled floor.<ref name="Snodgrass17"/><ref name="Miller17"/><ref name="Waxman17"/><ref name="Myers20"/>

thumb|right|upright=1.85|Candida Alvarez, ''Here to There'', from "Air Paintings" (2017-19); left image: front, right image: back; latex ink, acrylic, enamel, and glitter on PVC mesh with aluminum and wood; 81" x 71" x 26"; 2018. The "Estoy Bien" ("I'm fine") exhibition featured large, double-sided "Air Paintings" that employed multiple visual idioms and referenced loss (her father's recent death), seasonal cycles and the effects of climate change—in particular, Puerto Rico’s devastation by Hurricane Maria.<ref name="Bui20"/><ref name="Witt"/> The paintings were made of partly translucent PVC-mesh material and suspended from freestanding aluminum frames. She created them by printing collages of digitally manipulated images from her studio practice onto the mesh, which she then modified with gestural applications of latex ink, glitter and paint and painted fields of geometric and camouflage-like forms (e.g., ''Here to There'', 2018).<ref name="Leahy20"/><ref name="Voon20"/>

The show's title painting, ''Estoy Bien'', a vibrant, pastel-colored work featuring abstract splashes of coral, aqua blue and white paint, inspired the name and theme of El Museo del Barrio's first-ever national survey of contemporary Latino work—the largest in its history—"Estamos Bien — La Trienal 20/21."<ref name="Davis-Marks21">Davis-Marks, Isis. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/el-museo-del-barrios-estamos-bien-exhibition-shows-museums-first-nationwide-survey-latinx-artists-180977335/ "How a Sweeping Survey in NYC Redefines What It Means to Make ‘Latinx’ Art,"] ''Smithsonian Magazine'', March 26, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Passy21"/><ref name="Martinez21">Martinez, Nicole. [https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-10-latinx-artists-watch-el-museo-del-barrios-triennial "10 Latin American Artists to Watch at El Museo del Barrio’s Triennial,"] ''Artsy'', May 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> ''New York Times'' critic Holland Cotter described Alvarez's title as complex and "tinged with irony, the words suggest[ing] both resilience and bitterness";<ref name="Cotter21">Cotter, Holland. [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/arts/design/triennial-el-museo.html "El Museo Looks to Define 'Latinx Art' With a Major Survey,"] ''The New York Times'', March 25, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> the museum called it "a declaration of defiant resilience and a provocation, conflating a sarcastic and a positive tone."<ref name="DeGregorio21">DeGregorio, Erin. [http://www.star-revue.com/el-museo-del-barrio-reopens-with-national-survey-of-latinx-art-by-erin-degregorio/ "El Museo del Barrio Reopens with National Survey of Latinx Art,"] ''Red Hook Star-Revue'', March 14, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> The exhibition (which included Alvarez) confronted systems of power and examined identity, structural racism, migration, displacement, climate and ecological justice through the work of 42 artists and collectives.<ref name="Colon21b">Colón, Beatriz. [https://aldianews.com/en/culture/heritage-and-history/barrio-art "El Museo del Barrio inaugurates the first national Latinx art exhibition in its history,"] ''Al Día'', February 24, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Calderon">Calderón, Barbara. [https://news.artnet.com/art-world/el-museo-del-barrio-la-triennal-estamos-bien-review-1953022 "Veering From the Didactic to the Lyrical, El Museo del Barrio’s Worthy New Triennial Defines Latinx Art Through a Common Struggle,"] ''Artnet'', March 19, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="DeGregorio21"/>

In the "Palimpsest" paintings (2021), Alvarez employed a similar process to her "Air Paintings," scanning and printing drawings—in this case, on one-sided canvases—then applying successive transparent layers that effaced and intermingled with the initial images, creating complex records of action and time.<ref name="Gavlak"/>

The El Museo del Barrio exhibited her works in ''Candida Alvarez: Circle, Point, Hoop''<ref>{{Cite news |date=2025-05-22 |title=Candida Alvarez's Full Life in Living Color |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/arts/design/candida-alvarez-artist-abstract-el-museo.html |access-date=2025-08-01 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Candida Alvarez: Circle, Point, Hoop |url=https://www.elmuseo.org/exhibition/candida-alvarez-circle-point-hoop/ |access-date=2025-08-01 |website=El Museo del Barrio |language=en-US}}</ref> from April 24, 2025 to August 3, 2025. The exhibit displayed works from her 5 decade career including paintings and sculptures.

==Awards and recognition== In 2022, Alvarez was named a US Latinx Artist Fellow (Ford Foundation and Mellon Foundation) and received an Arts and Letters award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.<ref name="Velie22"/><ref name="AAAL">American Academy of Arts and Letters. [https://artsandletters.org/pressrelease/2022-art-award-winners/ "2022 Art Award Winners."] Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> She has also been recognized by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation (2021),<ref name="FCA"/> Joan Mitchell Foundation (2019),<ref name="JMF"/> International Artists' Studio Program (Stockholm, 1999), Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1994),<ref name="PKF"/> Mid-Atlantic-NEA Regional Fellowship (1988) and New York Foundation for the Arts (1986).<ref name="NYCPA">NYC Percent for Art. [https://www.nyc.gov/site/dclapercentforart/projects/projects-detail.page?recordID=8 Candida Alvarez], Projects. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> She has been awarded artist residencies by the LUMA Foundation (Arles), MacDowell Colony, MoMA PS1, Pilchuck Glass School and the Studio Museum in Harlem.<ref name="MacDowell">MacDowell. [https://www.macdowell.org/artists/candida-alvarez Candida Alvarez], Artists. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref><ref name="Quiles20"/><ref name="AF21">''Artforum''. [https://www.artforum.com/news/studio-museum-in-harlem-announces-2021-22-artists-in-residence-86995 "Studio Museum in Harlem Announces 2021–22 Artists in Residence,"] ''Artforum'', October 20, 2021. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref>

Alvarez's work belongs to public art collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art,<ref name="AGAA">Addison Gallery of American Art. [https://addison.andover.edu/search-the-collection/?embark_query=/objects-1/info?query=mfs%20all%20%22Candida%20Alvarez%22&sort=0&objectName=Breast,%20Navel,%20Eye Candida Alvarez, ''Breast, Navel, Eye''], Collection. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> Art Institute of Chicago,<ref name="AIC"/> Baltimore Museum of Art,<ref name="BAM">Baltimore Museum of Art. [https://collection.artbma.org/people/31539/candida-alvarez?ctx=b5d695854e47c7ec90ba26fab2a57d66f71d2293&idx=0 Candida Alvarez] Collection. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> Blanton Museum of Art,<ref name="BMA">Blanton Museum of Art. [https://blanton.emuseum.com/objects/23980/nueva-york?ctx=9888ed95465ea194f0fa8f693f7124210858ccba&idx=306 ''Nueva York'', Candida Alvarez], Objects. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> Brandywine Workshop and Archives,<ref name="BWA">Brandywine Workshop and Archives. [https://brandywine.art/collections/candida-alvarez Candida Alvarez], Collections. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> DePaul Art Museum,<ref name="DPAM">DePaul Art Museum. [https://hub.catalogit.app/4598/folder/entry/a000d9f0-494a-11eb-a9c1-f75bf5426e84 '' Son So & So'', Candida Alvarez], Collection. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> El Museo Del Barrio, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Pérez Art Museum Miami, San Jose Museum of Art,<ref name="SJMA"/> Studio Museum in Harlem,<ref name="SMH">Studio Museum in Harlem. [https://store.studiomuseum.org/collections/candida-alvarez Candida Alvarez], Collections. Retrieved November 14, 2022.</ref> Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,<ref name="VMFA"/> and Whitney Museum,<ref name="WM"/> among others.<ref name="FCA"/><ref name="SAIC"/> She has also received and completed three public art commissions. These include ''What do you See?'', a set of six stained glass windows created for the P.S. 306 (public school) in the Bronx;<ref name="NYCPA"/> the MTA Arts & Design project, ''B is for Birds in the Bronx'' (2006), faceted glass windscreens installed at the New York's Bronx Park East station;<ref name="MTA">MTA Arts & Design. [https://new.mta.info/agency/arts-design/collection/b-is-for-birds-in-the-bronx ''B is for Birds in the Bronx'', Candida Alvarez], Collection. Retrieved November 15, 2022.</ref> and ''Howlings—Soft Paintings'' (2017), a latex-on-PVC mural installed on the banks of the Chicago River as a part of Chicago's Year of Public Art.<ref name="Leahy20"/><ref name="Quiles20"/>

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons}} *[https://www.candidaalvarez.com/ Candida Alvarez website] *[https://brooklynrail.org/2020/03/art/CANDIDA-ALVAREZ-with-Phong-H-Bui Candida Alvarez with Phong H. Bui], ''The Brooklyn Rail'', 2020 *[https://archive.flaunt.com/content/qampa-candida-alvarez Q & A with Candida Alvarez] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206204055/https://archive.flaunt.com/content/qampa-candida-alvarez |date=2022-12-06 }}, ''Flaunt'', 2020 *[https://www.chicagogallerynews.com/news/2022/5/candidly-candida Catching up with Candida Alvarez], ''Chicago Gallery News'', 2022 *[https://www.moniquemeloche.com/artists/33-candida-alvarez/biography/ Candida Alvarez], Monique Meloche *[https://www.gavlakgallery.com/artists/candida-alvarez Candida Alvarez], Gavlak Gallery

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvarez, Candida}} Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:American contemporary painters Category:African-American contemporary artists Category:American people of Puerto Rican descent Category:Painters from Brooklyn Category:Fordham University alumni Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty Category:Yale School of Art alumni Category:20th-century American painters Category:21st-century American painters Category:20th-century American women painters Category:21st-century American women painters Category:Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni Category:20th-century African-American painters Category:20th-century African-American women artists Category:21st-century African-American women Category:21st-century American women academics Category:21st-century American academics Category:21st-century African-American artists Category:20th-century African-American academics Category:20th-century American academics