Judith Westphalen

Judith Westphalen (Catacaos, Peru, 1922 – Rome, Italy, 1976) was a self-taught artist, pioneer of abstract painting in Peru. She was part of the group of intellectuals, poets and artists who met in the gatherings and exhibitions of the Peña Pancho Fierro in Lima in the 1940s. She began her artistic career in that same period, approaching surrealism and showing her work for the first time in 1945 in Lima, and then in a group exhibition at Viña del Mar (Chile) in 1946. From 1949, together with her husband, the writer Emilio A. Westphalen, she lived for twelve years between New York, Spain and Italy. In these places she became familiar with the artistic avant-garde and developed her characteristic abstract style. In the sixties – the period that corresponds to the picture of this puzzle – she was an active participant in Lima’s cultural life. Her last solo exhibitions were held in Madrid and Rome.

** Photo by Jesús Ruiz Durand