This week’s female artist is Irene Rice Pereira. She was born August 5th, 1902 in Chelsea, MA. She was an abstract artist who was particularly known for her work in geometric abstraction, abstract expressionist, and lyrical abstraction. After her father died in 1918 Irene and her family moved to Brooklyn, New York. In 1922 she started working as a secretary to support her family. Money was tight with her father dead and her mother had some sort of illness. In 1927 she started taking art classes at the Art Students League. In the mid-1930s she started working with Hans Hofmann. She also had many artist friends such as Burgoyne Diller and Dorothy Dehner. In 1935 she became one of the founders and instructors at the Design Laboratory.

Irene’s first husband was a commercial artist named Umberto Pereira. After him she married an architect named George Wellington Brown. They divorced and she married the Irish poet George Reavey in 1950. That marriage also ended.

She kept the name Pereira and went as I. Rice Pererira professionally to avoid being discriminated against since she was a female artist.

She died in Marbella, Spain on January 11th, 1971.