Elisa Wouk Almino at the NYRB:
It wasn’t until Luchita Hurtado was ninety-nine years old that she would witness the opening of her first museum retrospective. Titled “I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn,” the exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) showcases the artist’s paintings, drawings, and sketches spanning eighty years. Inside the galleries in early February, she addressed the press, smiling, “This is one of the best moments of my life.”
Hurtado spent much of her life mingling with and befriending some of the twentieth century’s best-known artists. She was close to Isamu Noguchi and once attended a party in Frida Kahlo’s hospital room. When she first met Marcel Duchamp, he gave Hurtado a foot massage. Jackson Pollock “scared the hell” out of her. But none of them knew Hurtado herself was an artist.
more here.