Background
Marta Traba was born on January 25, 1930 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her parents were Catalan immigrants, Francisco Traba and Marta Taín.
Viamonte 430, C1053 CABA, Argentina
Marta Traba studied Letters at the University of Buenos Aires and graduated with a degree in philosophy and the history of art.
(In "Art of Latin America", Marta Traba offers new insight...)
In "Art of Latin America", Marta Traba offers new insights into the work of Latin America's most significant 20th-century artists.
https://www.amazon.com/Latin-America-1900-1980-Inter-American-Development/dp/0940602717/?tag=2022091-20
Marta Traba was born on January 25, 1930 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her parents were Catalan immigrants, Francisco Traba and Marta Taín.
Marta Traba studied Letters at the University of Buenos Aires and graduated with a degree in philosophy and the history of art. From 1948 to 1950, she lived in Paris and took art history classes at La Sorbonne and the School of the Louvre.
From 1951 to 1953 Traba studied art with Gulio Carlo Argan and Pierre Francastel.
Upon graduation Marta Traba worked at the arts review journal Ver y Estimar ("Look and Consider"), under the editorship of the art critic Jorge Romero Brest.
From 1948 to 1950, Traba lived in Paris, and in 1954, after a period in Italy and Argentina, she settled in Bogotá, Colombia. There, Traba taught art history at various universities, including the University of the America in 1954-1955, University of the Andes, Colombia from 1956 and 1966, National University of Colombia in 1966-1967.
During her career, Traba published more than 20 books and around 1,000 articles about art. In 1958, she published "El museo vacío", a book concerning modern art in which she adopted aesthetic notions by Benedetto Croce and Wilhelm Worringer. Traba also published numerous provocative essays about Latin American art: "La pintura nueva en Latinoamérica" (1961), "Dos décadas vulnerables en las artes plásticas latinoamericanas, 1950-1970" (1973), and "Arte de América Latina 1900-1980". She also supported with her writings the work of numerous Colombian artists such as Alejandro Obregón, Fernando Botero, Guillermo Wiedemann, Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar, Samuel Montealegre, Edgar Negret, Feliza Bursztyn and Juan Antonio Roda.
Marta Traba also founded an art criticism journal "Prisma" in Bogota in 1957. In the early 1960s she co-founded and directed the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá, which was later moved to the campus of the National University of Colombia. Moreover, in 1966, Traba began to publish novels. Her first novel was "Las ceremonias del verano" (1966).
In addition, she also participated in television programs about art, and wrote art criticism for popular publications such as El Tiempo, Estampa, and Semana. She became a celebrity and one of the leading authorities in contemporary art in Colombia.
Marta Traba also taught art at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras during 1970-1971, and was a professor of Latin American art at Caracas Teacher’s College in Caracas, Venezuela in 1977. From 1977 to 1979 she was a research professor at the Central University of Caracas Institute of Art.
Besides, Marta Traba lectured art at various universities, including Harvard University, University of Massachusetts, Smith College, Oberlin College, University of Maryland, and Middlebury College, during 1979-1981. She was also a visiting professor of art at Princeton University.
In 1979, Traba settled in the Washington, D.C. She continued to lecture at various universities while preparing a catalog and a book based on the collection of the Art Museum of the Americas of the Organization of American States. In 1982, when the Ronald Reagan administration denied Traba and Rama permanent residency the couple moved to Paris.
Marta Traba was killed along with her second husband, Uruguayan literary critic Ángel Rama, Mexican novelist and playwright Jorge Ibargüengoitia and Peruvian novelist, poet, and political activist Manuel Scorza, on 27 November 1983 when Avianca Flight 011 crashed near Madrid-Barajas airport. They were on the plane on their way to Colombia.
(In "Art of Latin America", Marta Traba offers new insight...)
(A powerful novel of women in Latin America's hell of the ...)
1981Marta Traba opposed tyranny and corruption while advocating human rights, democracy, and women's rights.
In 1967, during the government of President Carlos Lleras Restrepo, the military seized the campus of the National University of Colombia. After Traba publicly criticized these actions the government ordered her deportation, which was later rescinded on condition that Traba resigned to all her official posts and refrained from political commentary. Traba left Colombia in 1969.
When Marta Traba lived in Paris, she met her first husband, the Colombian journalist Alberto Zalamea. They married in 1950. The couple had two children, Gustavo and Fernando. In 1954, after a period in Italy and Argentina, the couple settled in Bogotá, Colombia. However, they divorced in 1967, and Traba left Colombia in 1969.
The same year she married her second husband Angel Rama, the Uruguayan literary critic. They lived and worked in Montevideo, Caracas, and San Juan de Puerto Rico. In 1979, Traba and Rama settled in the Washington, D.C., as Rama was a tenured professor at the University of Maryland. In 1982, when the Ronald Reagan administration denied Traba and Rama permanent residency the couple moved to Paris. They were both killed on 27 November 1983 when Avianca Flight 011 crashed near Madrid-Barajas airport. They were on the plane on their way to Colombia.