Carmen Herrera and the Innovative Use of Acrylic Paint in Post-War Paris

Carmen Herrera arrived in Paris in 1948 having already established a distinctly abstract style. However, after discovering and befriending the artists associated with the Salon Des Réalités Nouvelles she began experimenting more broadly. In pursuit of new visual effects she began mixing other materials, like sand, plaster, and raw pigments into her paints to achieve areas of contrasting texture. She also started to experiment with new types of paint that were becoming available, searching for a purer color that would not age and yellow as oil paint would, as well as something that would dry fast to help keep the lines of her hard edged abstractions clean. One medium that she has repeatedly listed in describing the works from this period is acrylic. However, water-borne acrylic emulsion paint had not yet been invented yet. Solvent-borne acrylic solution paints were only just being developed in New York City and were not available in Paris. Spurred by Herrera’s claim, the author worked with conservation scientists from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to analyze samples of 5 paintings dating from 1948-1953. The results showed that while some paints were oil or commercial enamels, others were indeed acrylic. While the source of the paint is not yet clear, the scope and duration of its availability must have been quite limited. As such Herrera would have been one of the earliest adopters of this revolutionary medium, one that she never abandoned and continues to use to this day.