Sonia Sekula

Sonia Sekula (18 April 1918 – 25 April 1963) (also known as Sonja Sekula) was a Swiss-born artist linked with the abstract expressionist movement, notable for her activity as an "out" lesbian in the New York art world during the 1940s and early 1950s.^[1]

She was born in Lucerne on 8 April 1918 to a Swiss mother, Berta Huguenin (1896–1980), and a Hungarian father, Béla Sekula (1881–1966), a philatelist.

She lived in America from 1936 to 1955. She attended Sarah Lawrence College. She met the surrealists in exile in New York during 1942.^[2] On 25 April 1963 she hanged herself in her studio in Zurich after many years of mental health issues.^[3] She is buried in St. Moritz as she had requested in a letter to her mother.^[4]

Exhibitions

• 1943 - Group show 31 Women Artists, Art of this Century Gallery, New York
• 1948 - Betty Parsons Gallery, New York
• 1953 - Group Show "Nine Women Painters", Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont
• 1957 - Galerie Palette, Zurich, Switzerland
• 1996 - Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (1 June - 11 August)
• 1996 - Sonja Sekula (1918–1963): A Retrospective, Swiss Institute, New York, USA (12 September - 26 October) ^[5]
• 2016 - "Sonja Sekula, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock & Friends", Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland

Bibliography

• Womb - poem and drawing - VVV, March 1943
• Who was Sonia Sekula?, Art in America, October 1971 ^[6]
• A Golden Girl Escaping Into Infinity, New York Times, 20 September 1996^[7]
• Sonja Sekula - Im Zeichen der Frage, im Zeichen der Antwort. Ausgewählte Texte und Wortbilder, (in German and English) Lenos Verlag, Zürich 1996. ISBN 3-85787-250-0
• Dunkelschwestern - Annemarie von Matt und Sonja Sekula, by Roger Perret and Roman Kurzmeyer, 2008
• "Sekula, Sonja". SIKART dictionary and database. 

References