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Lita Cabellut / Coco Chanel - Opera Gallery

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My life didn’t please me, so I created my life »<br />

Although the words are <strong>Chanel</strong>’s, they could easily have been <strong>Cabellut</strong>’s. These two women<br />

have much in common: both began their lives in extreme poverty and had to fight to impose their<br />

unique style with amazing audacity…and talent!<br />

Born a gypsy in the earthy streets of Barcelona in<br />

1961, her father unknown, deserted by her<br />

prostitute mother at the tender age of three<br />

months, nurtured by her gypsy grandmother who<br />

refused to send <strong>Lita</strong> to school, handed over to an<br />

orphanage at age eight, <strong>Lita</strong> <strong>Cabellut</strong> slowly<br />

climbed the ladder of artistic success, starting with<br />

her studies at the Fine Arts School in Amsterdam<br />

(one of the world’s most reputed institutions).<br />

Her obsession with the Prado Museum at the age<br />

of 13, her admiration for Rembrandt and Francis<br />

Bacon, her sense of closeness with fellow<br />

countryman and artist Antoni Tàpies, were the<br />

spiritual and artistic nourishment that defined <strong>Lita</strong>’s<br />

style: a unique blend of representational rigor and<br />

eloquent strokes, where shape and emotion<br />

become one.<br />

<strong>Lita</strong> <strong>Cabellut</strong> - Crédit photo : Maarten Schets<br />

<strong>Lita</strong> <strong>Cabellut</strong>’s passion : the human condition<br />

n<br />

<strong>Coco</strong> <strong>Chanel</strong> built her own style just as <strong>Lita</strong><br />

<strong>Cabellut</strong> ‘builds’ her creations. The artist creates<br />

larger-than-life portraits, fashioning them with oil,<br />

plaster on linen, a painterly technique and<br />

procedure creating cracks on the surface of the<br />

canvas; a process which the artist has mastered<br />

and that enhances each piece’s visual power.<br />

Exhibiting throughout Europe and the United<br />

States since 1984, hailed by art critics<br />

everywhere, <strong>Lita</strong> <strong>Cabellut</strong> is famous for her<br />

provocative and stirring series that illustrate her<br />

definition of the human condition: prostitutes,<br />

clowns, transvestites, musicians, entertainers…<br />

Following her series on Frida Kahlo which sold out<br />

in London in February, 2011, <strong>Lita</strong> <strong>Cabellut</strong> is<br />

currently preparing her next project where she<br />

will take on one of the world’s tragic afflictions:<br />

mental illness.<br />

<strong>Lita</strong> <strong>Cabellut</strong> in her studio<br />

photo by Eddy Wenting

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